LIBRARY  OF  THE  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


i 


PRINCETON,  N.  J. 

Presented  by 

V\erDe.r+  Adams  Gr'ilolo 


on  "5 


B\rT3 13^"  .  Vr&5    188 9 

Wood,  Charles,  1851-1936. 

Beginning  life 


1#^ 


^4 


BEGINNING  LIFE 


.i  w  Ph!llC£> 


OCT  1    1920 
A  SERIES  OF  SERMONS  TO  THE  YOUNG. 


THE  EEV.  CHARLES  WOOD,  D.  D. 


PHILADELPHIA  : 

PRESBYTERIAN  BOARD  OF  PUBLICATION 
AND  SABBATH-SCHOOL  WORK, 

No,  1334  CHESTNUT  STREET. 


COPYRIGHT,    1889,   BY 

THE  TRUSTEES  OF  THE 

PKESBYTERIAN  BOARD  OF  PUBLICATION 
AND  SABBATH-SCHOOL  WORK. 


ALL  RIGHTS  RESEBVED. 


Westcott  &  Thomson, 
Stereotypers  and  Etectrotypers,  Philada. 


DEDICATED 


YOUNG    PEOPLE'S  SOCIETY 

or 

CHRISTIAN   ENDEAVOR 

OF  THE 

FIRST   PRESBYTERIAISr    CHURCH, 
Germantown,  Philadelphia, 

AND  TO  ALL  THE  YOUNG  PEOPLE  OF  THAT  CHURCH 
AND  CONGREGATION. 


CONTENTS 


I. 

PAGE 

Is  Life  a  Career,  or  a  Mission  ? 7 


II. 
Youth 23 

III. 
Friendships 33 

IV. 

What  shall  we  Read? 49 

V. 

The  Forming  of  Habits 65 

VI. 
Perpetual  Youth 83 

VII. 

Temptation 97 

5 


6  CONTENTS. 

VIII. 

PAOH 

Making  a  Home 113 

IX. 
Strength 129 

X. 
Success 145 


I. 

IS  LIFE  A  CAREER,  OR  A  MISSION? 


BEGINNING  LIFE, 


I. 

IS  LIPE  A  CAREER,  OR  A  MISSION? 

"I  must  work  the  works  of  Him  that  sent  me,  while  it  is 
day." — John  ix.  4. 

THE  life  of  Jesus  Christ  was  pervaded  with  a 
feeliug  of  responsibility.  He  spoke  of  himself 
as  having  come  to  this  earth  on  a  most  momentous 
mission,  and  his  thoughts  were  perpetually  con- 
centrated upon  the  accomplishment  of  it.  They 
who  have  entered  most  fully  into  the  meaning  of 
his  life  have  had  some  such  feeling  about  them- 
selves. His  mission  was  infinitely  more  glorious 
than  theirs,  or  than  that  of  any  human  being, 
but  all  his  brethren,  as  he  calls  us,  must  have, 
like  him,  a  God-given  work  to  do.  This,  it  must 
be  confessed,  is  a  somewhat  serious,  not  to  say  som- 
bre, view  to  take  of  life ;  it  is  a  view  that  theoret- 
ically very  many,  and  practically  very  many  more, 
openly  or  tacitly  refuse  to  take.  Life,  as  they 
look  at  it,  is  a  career — something  to  be  played 
like  a  game;  and  he  who  wins,  though  he  may 
have  broken  all  the  rules,  is  to   have  the  prize. 

9 


10  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

This  is  the  popular  view  that  is  spreading  like  a 
contagion,  and  no  land  is  more  exposed  than  our 
own.  We  have  no  hereditary  rulers  ;  our  ancestors 
preserved  us  from  ever  waiting  "  as  sycophants  iu 
the  court  of  kings;"  but  we  satisfy  the  servile 
part  of  our  natures  by  the  abject  homage  we  pay 
success.  The  smart  man,  the  man  who  gets  on, 
who  does  what  he  sets  out  to  do  iu  whatever  way, 
is  getting  to  be  our  national  hero.  Hereditary 
position  and  wealth  count  for  less  here  than  in 
England,  but  the  self-made  man,  the  man  who 
lifts  himself  above  his  fellows  and  wrings  a  fort- 
une from  the  hands  of  reluctant  Fate,  is  the  one 
before  whom  Liberty  herself  would  uncap  if  her 
helmet  were  not  riveted  to  her  beautiful  head. 

I  shall  make  no  effort  at  this  time  to  overturn 
this  theory  by  weight  of  argument ;  I  shall  rather 
attempt  to  displace  it  by  causing  some  of  the  fig- 
ures most  prominent  in  the  English-speaking  world 
to  pass  before  you,  and  as  you  see  that  they  have 
each  broken  away  from  or  outgrown  the  concep- 
tion of  life  as  a  career,  you  may  come  to  see  as 
they  saw  that  life  is  a  mission.  I  am  encouraged 
in  this  attempt  by  the  fact  that  this  audience  is  so 
largely  made  up  of  the  young,  for,  as  the  rabbis 
say,  "  to  teach  wisdom  to  the  old  is  to  write  it  in 
water;  to  teach  it  to  the  young  is  to  grave  it  on 
stone." 

Let  me  hold  before  you,  first,  as  a  sort  of  back- 
ground for  my  dissolving- views,  the  form  of  one 


IS  LIFE  A   CAREER,   OR  A  MISSION f        11 

wlio  uover  rose  above  the  conception  of  life  as  a 
career,  and  who  would  have  been,  if  that  definition 
were  correct,  a  most  brilliant  success.  Eleven  years 
ago,  in  the  vestibule  of  the  English  House  of  Com- 
mons, I  saw  a  man  of  sphinx-like  face  gazing, 
with  a  score  or  more  dignified  companions,  at  a 
statue  of  some  famous  statesman  that  had  just 
been  put  in  place.  This  man  at  whom  we  were 
looking  was  at  that  time  on  the  crest  of  the  wave ; 
a  man  of  fashion,  a  writer  of  sensational  melodra- 
matic novels,  a  member  of  Parliament  hissed  back 
into  his  seat  after  his  first  speech,  the  leader  of  his 
party,  the  prime  minister  of  the  realm,  an  earl,  and 
is  still,  a  decade  after  his  death,  a  popular  idol ;  and, 
withal,  a  Hebrew.  No  such  phenomenon  had  ever 
before  appeared  in  English  history.  He  was  a 
nimble  matador,  fastening  his  darts  in  the  necks 
of  his  enraged  adversaries  as  they  rushed  upon  him 
while  he  stepped  aside  with  a  light  laugh,  half  at 
them  and  half  at  himself.  This  winner  of  all  the 
honors  must  have  died  a  disappointed  man,  for  it  is 
doing  him  no  injustice,  if  one  may  judge  from  all  that 
he  ever  said  or  did,  to  say  that  he  lived  for  power 
and  thought  the  man  either  a  fool  or  a  hypocrite  who ' 
professed  any  less  earthly  motive ;  and  power  was 
the  one  thing  that  he  lost  before  his  death.  He  was 
no  longer  prime  minister :  his  hated  rival  had  the 
rank  that  was  heaven  to  him.  Life  as  a  career  even 
the  marvelous  Hebrew  would  probably  have  pro- 
nounced a  failure. 


12  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

Compare  this  life  with  that  of  another  English 
earl  covering  almost  the  same  decades.  No  high  of- 
fice was  his,  but  he  was  an  enthusiast  in  doing  good. 
There  was  scarcely  a  society,  philanthropic  or  Chris- 
tian, in  all  London  that  could  not  count  on  his  sup- 
port. All  the  downtrodden  and  oppressed  felt  that 
he  was  their  friend.  Multitudes  are  living  happier, 
nobler  lives  to-day  because  of  Shaftesbury.  Where 
is  there  one  nobly  inspired  by  the  brilliant  statesman, 
the  unrivaled  organizer  of  dramatic  international 
councils  ? 

Standing  only  a  few  feet  away  from  the  Hebrew 
earl  that  afternoon  in  the  vestibule  of  the  House  of 
Commons  was  a  man  of  a  very  different  type.  He 
was  then  supposed  to  be  suffering  from  the  defeat 
that  had  carried  himself  and  his  party  out  of  power, 
but  his  influence  had  never  been  greater,  and  the 
real  work  of  his  life  was  being  carried  on  as  quietly 
and  as  successfully  as  if  those  adverse  votes  had  never 
been  cast.  Even  as  a  boy  he  was  so  remarkable, 
both  intellectually  and  morally,  that  a  young  Eaton 
lad  now  famous  as  the  late  dean  of  the  Abbey  was 
taken  to  see  him  as  a  reward  for  well-doing.  He 
grew  steadily  upon  the  world  till  by  almost  com- 
mon consent  among  his  kin  beyond  the  sea  he  is 
known  as  the  greatest  of  living  Englishmen.  He 
too,  like  the  Hebrew  earl,  has  held  his  honors  lightly, 
though  not  for  the  same  reasons.  He  has  gone  from 
cabinet  meetings  where  the  destiny  of  a  continent 
was  decided,  to  pray  with  some  dying  laborer  on  his 


IS  LIFE  A    CAREER,    OR  A   3IISSI0N?        13 

estate.  He  has  probably  accepted  gladly  the  great 
offices  to  which  he  has  been  called,  but  he  has  never 
forgotten  that  his  real  mission  here,  like  that  of 
every  other  true  man,  is  to  work  the  works  of  Him 
that  sent  him.  The  success  of  both  these  lives  is 
beyond  us,  but  not  the  eagerness  for  it  of  the  one 
or  the  comparative  indiiference  to  it  of  the  other. 
The  fidelity  to  a  high  ideal  that  makes  one  of  these 
lives  so  admirable  is  not  beyond  the  reach  of  the 
very  humblest. 

Not  unworthy  to  be  mentioned  in  the  same  breath 
with  the  great  statesman  and  the  Christian  apologist 
is  the  gray-haired,  silver-tongued  orator  of  the  So- 
ciety of  Friends.  Perhaps  he  was  the  truest  and 
most  hopeful  friend  we  had  in  England  during  our 
war.  He  looked  across  the  sea  in  the  dark  hour 
when  Northern  armies  were  thrown  back  broken 
and  discouraged,  and  through  the  smoke  of  the  con- 
flict he  saw  the  o-lowino;  vision  of  '^one  vast  confede- 
ration  stretching  in  an  unbroken  line  from  the  frozen 
North  to  the  glowing  South  and  from  the  wild  bil- 
lows of  the  Atlantic  w- estward  to  the  calmer  waters  of 
the  Pacific  main ;  and  I  see,^^  said  he,  "  one  people  and 
one  language  and  one  law  and  one  faith  over  all  that 
wide  continent,  the  home  of  freedom  and  the  refuge 
of  the  oppressed  of  every  land  and  of  every  clime.'' 
On  the  morning  of  the  first  day  of  each  Aveek  he 
takes  his  place  with  a  little  company  in  sombre  garb 
whose  worship  of  God  is  mostly  of  the  silent  sort, 
but  his,  at  least,  is  so  sincere  that  more  than  once  he 


14  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

has  followed  his  convictions  concerning  war  and 
peace,  out  of  office  into  obscurity  as  great  as  is  possi- 
ble for  such  a  man.  It  has  been  altogether  impos- 
sible for  him  to  accept  any  position,  however  honor- 
able, that  would  hinder  his  doing  as  he  understands 
it  ^Hhe  works  of  Him  that  sent  him/' 

"  If  I  could  choose  my  lot  in  life,''  said  one  idler 
to  another,  ''  I  would  be  an  English  duke."  The 
possibilities  open  to  one  born  in  that  position  are 
somewhat  dazzling.  Apparently,  such  a  one  has 
only  to  close  his  fingers  upon  the  prizes  that  fall  un- 
sought into  his  palms.  Like  one  of  our  rich  men's 
sons,  who  has  no  need  to  do  anything  if  he  has  no 
wish  to  be  anything  but  a  rich  man's  son,  he  has  no 
need  to  exert  himself  if  he  does  not  Avish  to  be  any- 
thing but  a  duke.  But  even  men  who  have  inherited 
a  career  so  brilliant  have  not  ignobly  contented 
themselves  with  it,  but  have  felt  that  they  too  were 
called  to  work  the  works  of  Him  that  sent  them  into 
the  ducal  palace.  There  is  a  duke  allied  by  marriage 
to  the  English  queen  upon  whom  I  ask  you  to  look, 
not  because  of  the  splendor  of  his  rank  or  of 
the  glory  reflected  from  the  crown,  but  because  his 
view  of  life  is  that  of  a  responsible  mission  which 
it  has  been  his  purpose  to  accomplish  in  a  way  pleas- 
ing to  his  Master.  No  small  portion  of  his  life  has 
been  devoted  to  diligent  study  of  nature  and  of  law. 
No  better  exposition  of  the  reign  of  Law  has  been 
given  than  his.  Convinced  of  the  unseen  Presence 
everywhere,  it  has    been   his   effort  to   show    how 


IS  LIFE  A   CAREER,   OB  A  MISSION?        15 

**  The  whole  round  eartli  is  every  way 
Bound  by  gold  cliains  about  the  feet  of  God." 

The  qualities  which  make  him  most  admirable,  his 
fidelity,  his  devotion  to  duty  and  truth,  are  within 
the  reach  of  the  humblest  mechanic  and  clerk.  The 
virtues  which  sliine  so  brightly  to  men's  eyes  when 
they  are  exhibited  by  those  of  exalted  rank  shine  as 
brightly  in  God's  eyes  when  set  in  the  most  lowly 
surrouudings.  The  same  "■  Well  done  !"  is  to  be 
spoken  at  last  to  all  good  and  faithful  servants, 
whether  they  come  from  the  hills  or  from  the  valleys 
of  earth. 

It  is  openly  asserted  that  Christianity  has  lost  its 
grip  on  the  thinking  men  of  these  modern  times. 
An  English  poet  who  gives  voice  to  many  thoughts 
that  are  in  the  air  depicts  this  age  as  one  of  transi- 
tion.    He  finds  himself,  he  says, 

"  Wandering  between  two  worlds, 
One  dead,  the  other  powerless  to  be  born." 

The  leaders  of  thought  are  dumb;  they  have  no 
fair  visions  to  w^iich  to  point ;  they  have  no  high 
calls  to  go  in  and  possess  the  land  of  promise  ly- 
ing within  sight. 

"Achilles  ponders  in  his  tent ; 

The  kings  of  modern  thought  are  dumb : 
Silent  they  are,  though  not  content, 

And  wait  to  see  the  future  come — 
v^ilent  while  years  engrave  the  brow. 
Silent !  the  best  are  silent  now." 


16  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

But  I  see  an  old  man  who  has  long  swayed  the 
destinies  of  England  rising  in  his  place  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  and  in  the  great  hush  that  comes  upon 
that  assembly  and  the  whole  English-speaking  world 
when  he  speaks,  I  hear  him  say,  "  I  believe  in  God 
the  Father  Almighty,  Maker  of  heaven  and  earth, 
and  in  Jesus  Christ,  his  only  Son,  our  Lord."  By 
his  side  stands  the  silver-tongued  orator  of  England, 
and  with  him  are  the  scientific  duke  and  the  poet-lau- 
reate and  the  most  thoughtful  of  all  the  poets  of  our 
time,  and  they  too  repeat  their  creed  :  ^'  We  believe 
in  God  the  Father  Almighty,  Maker  of  heaven  and 
earth,  and  in  Jesus  Christ,  his  only  Son,  our  Lord." 
Ah,  no  !     The  best  are  not  all  silent  now. 

Life  may  be  a  meaningless  career,  as  it  has  been, 
and  is,  to  vast  multitudes ;  it  may  be  a  most  signifi- 
cant and  exalted  mission.  It  is  very  much  what 
we  make  of  it.  It  is  told  of  a  witty  dean  that,  ar- 
riving somewhat  prematurely  one  evening  at  a  re- 
ception, he  was  the  first  to  enter  the  great  drawing- 
room  hung  on  every  side  with  mirrors,  and,  seeing 
his  own  form  reflected  everywhere,  he  rubbed  his 
hands  and  said,  "  Ah  !  a  gathering  of  the  clergy,  I 
see  !"  So  men  come  into  life  where  there  are  great 
reflectors  on  every  side.  The  avaricious  man  rubs 
his  hands  and  says,  "  Ah  !  a  gatliering  of  money- 
getters,  I  see  !"  The  ambitious  man  rubs  his  hands 
and  says,  "  Ah  !  a  gathering  of  place-hunters,  I 
see !"  The  lotus-eater  rubs  his  hands  and  says, 
*'  Ah  !  a  gathering  of  pleasure-seekers,  I  see !"  and 


IS  LIFE  A    CAREER,    OR  A  MISSION?        17 

the  cynic  rubs  his  hands  and  says,  ^^  Ah  !  a  gather- 
ing of  apes,  I  see,  making  faces  at  one  another  !" 
while  the  true-hearted  man  rubs  his  hands  and  snys, 
*^  Ah  !  a  gathering  of  men,  I  see  !"     As  Lowell  says, 

"  Be  noble,  and  the  nobleness  that  lies 
Sleeping  in  other  men,  but  never  dead, 
Will  rise  in  majesty  to  meet  thine  own." 

Let  life  be  for  you  a  high  and  holy  embassy,  and 
you  will  find  multitudes  as  eager  as  yourself  to  work 
the  works  of  Him  that  sent  them. 

There  are  but  two  essentials  for  a  truly  successful 
life.  The  first  of  these  is  nobleness  of  ideal.  Fol- 
low anything  but  the  highest  and  best,  and  your 
work  will  be  needlessly  faulty.  High  above  the 
fair  city  on  the  Arno,  near  the  church  of  San  Min- 
iato,  stands  Michael  Angelo's  statue  of  David.  To 
the  untrained  eye  it  is  one  of  his  masterpieces,  but 
artists  tell  us  it  is  the  least  perfect  of  anything  he 
has  left  us.  The  story  is  that  Angelo  in  an  unfort- 
unate moment  accepted  the  partly-executed  design 
of  another,  of  course  inferior,  sculptor,  and,  though 
possessed  of  almost  more  than  human  skill,  he  was 
never  able  to  overcome  those  faults  that  could  only 
have  been  escaped  by  destroying  utterly  the  imper- 
fect design.  Accept  any  merely  human  model  as 
your  ideal  of  the  perfect  life,  and  you  will  never  at- 
tain to  that  which  was  possible  to  you ;  accept  the 
perfect  mau  Christ  Jesus  as  the  ideal  toward  which 
you  wish  to  work  and  into  which  you  wish  your 
2 


18  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

life  to  come,  and  nothing  can  prevent  your  success. 
You  shall  be  satisfied  at  last^  for  you  shall  be  trans- 
formed into  that  likeness.  The  work  of  each  day 
will  fit  easily  into  the  great  purposes  of  your  life ; 
you  will  have  no  desire  to  escape  from  your  present 
lot  into  another  more  advantageous,  but  your  desire 
will  be  to  do  what  you  have  to  do  unto  his  glory. 
You  will  see  how  true  it  is,  as  Herbert  says, 

"  All  may  of  Thee  partake ; 
Nothing  can  be  so  mean 
That  with  this  tincture,  '  For  thy  sake,' 
Will  not  grow  fair  and  clean. 

"  A  servant  with  this  clause 
Makes  drudgery  divine ; 
Who  sweeps  a  room  as  to  thy  laws 
Makes  that  and  th'  action  tine." 

The  moment  Christ  becomes  your  ideal  you  will 
hear  him  teaching  you  that  to  be  his  disciple  it  is 
not  necessary  to  do  singular  things  :  It  Is  only  neces- 
sary "to  do  common  things  singularly  well.'' 

The  second  essential  to  make  this  mission  we  call 
life  a  successful  one  is  steadfastness  of  purpose. 
Conquerors  are  men  who  have  given  and  taken 
hard  blows.  On  their  knees  in  the  dust  one  mo- 
ment, before  their  adversary  can  cry  "  Surrender  !'' 
they  are  up  again  and  ready  to  charge.  General 
Grant  used  to  say  there  was  a  time  In  every  hard- 
fought  battle  when  both  sides  were  beaten ;  the 
commander  who  strikes  the  first  hard  blow  after 


IS  LIFE  A  CAREER,   OR  A  31138 f ON f        19 

that  wins  the  battle.  The  man  who  is  easily  dis- 
couraged, who  believes  the  first  person  who  says, 
"  You'll  never  amount  to  anything,"  and  either 
gets  out  of*  the  fight  altogether  or  gives  only  half- 
hearted blows,  certainly  never  will  amount  to  very 
much.  But  the  man  who  is  determined,  who  ex- 
pects to  get  a  good  many  hard  knocks  and  some 
severe  wounds,  and  who  knows  how  to  die,  but  not 
how  to  retreat  or  surrender,  is  sure  in  the  end  to 
win  if  he  is  fighting  on  the  right  side — on  God's 
side.  Are  you  down  now?  Are  you  out  of  work  ? 
Are  you  thoroughly  discouraged  ?  Dou't  give  up  ! 
I  saw  a  list  the  other  day  of  our  most  successful 
business-men,  and  in  almost  every  instance  you  had 
only  to  go  back  ten,  fifteen  or  twenty  years  to  find 
these  very  men,  now  on  the  crest  of  the  wave,  in 
the  trough  of  the  sea.  They  wouldn't  be  beaten, 
and  so  they  couldn't  be. 

"  The  heights  by  great  men  reached  and  kept 
Were  not  attained  by  sudden  flight, 
But  they,  while  their  companions  slept, 
Were  toiling  upward  in  the  night." 

Have  no  fear  of  the  night.  Christ,  your  Brother, 
waits  for  you  there  in  the  darkness,  and  he  will  lead 
you,  if  you  trust  him,  safe  through  to  the  light  be- 
yond. Let  your  ideal  of  life  be  that  of  a  high  and 
holy  mission.  Set  yourself  determinedly  to  work 
the  w^orks  of  Him  who  sent  you,  wheresoever 
you  are  and  in  the  midst  of  whatever  discourage- 


20  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

ments,  aud  it  needs  even  now  no  prophet  to  write 
your  epitaph.  The  world  may  never  think  you 
a  brilliant  success ;  but  when  you  die,  ^'all  nature 
will  rise  up  and  say,  This  was  a  man/^  and  those 
who  knew  you  best  will  say,  "This  was  a  Chris- 
tian man."  And  Christ  has  promised  that  he  will 
have  something  to  say  to  such  a  one  that  will  thrill 
the  soul  as  all  the  honors  of  the  court  and  the  camp 
and  the  forum  never  could. 


II. 

YOUTH. 


11. 

YOUTH. 

"  Let  no  man  despise  thy  youth." — 1  Tim.  iv.  12. 

YOUTH  is  in  danger  of  having  contempt  put 
upon  it  by  those  who  are  young  and  wish  they 
were  older,  and  those  who  are  old  and  wish  they 
were  younger.  They  who  have  it  are  tempted  to 
underestimate  a  familiar  possession,  as  they  who 
have  it  no  longer  are  tempted  to  belittle  that  which 
is  for  ever  beyond  their  reach.  Timothy,  like  all 
youthful  teachers,  was  exposed  to  the  possibility 
of  being  unappreciated  by  those  of  his  own  age 
and  ignored  by  those  who  were  no  longer  young ; 
Timothy  himself  is  in  danger  of  falsely  appraising 
that  for  which  even  Paul  seems  to  offer  an  indirect 
apology,  and  of  sometimes  wishing  he  were  not  em- 
barrassed by  such  riches.  Nothing  makes  a  young 
person  blush  so  quickly  as  to  be  charged  with  youth. 
Probably  every  young  man  wishes  himself  older  as 
fervently  as  most  old  men  wish  themselves  younger. 
Not  till  we  pass  through  youth  and  look  back  upon 
it  do  we  see  how  very  far  indeed  it  was  from  being 
a  despicable  epoch  in  our  lives.  Youth  is  like  a 
picture  from  which  we  must  be  removed,  a  little 

23 


24  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

way,  at  least — if  we  would  see  It  properly.  ''  Happy 
are  the  yoiiDg,  for  they  have  life  before  them/^  we 
are  sure  must  have  been  said  by  a  man  who  was 
thus  removed  by  the  consciousness  of  swiftly-coming 
old  age. 

"  There  are  gains  for  all  our  losses, 
There  are  balms  for  all  our  pains ; 
But  when  youth,  the  dream,  departs, 
It  takes  something  from  our  hearts, 
And  it  never  comes  again." 

What  prodigals  we  all  are  in  youth  !  We  spend 
like  princes,  as  if  we  had  royal  treasuries  to  draw 
from.  What  spendthrifts  we  are  of  time !  Our 
only  question  concerning  it  is  how  we  shall  pass  it 
most  quickly  and  pleasantly  by.  A  queen  proifers 
her  realm  for  an  inch  of  time,  and  the  youth  flings 
away  with  a  light  heart  the  small  coin  of  days  and 
weeks  and  the  larger  pieces  of  months  and  years. 
We  laugh  at  the  clock  and  statistics  and  preachers 
when  we  are  young.  Nothing  seems  to  us  so  ab- 
surd as  the  undeniable  proofs  they  give  us  that  after 
a  decade  or  so  of  years  this  youth  that  we  have  ac- 
customed ourselves  to  think  of  as  belonging  to  us, 
like  our  names  or  our  physiognomies,  will  be  ours  no 
longer,  and  we  shall  be  old  then  like  those  people 
who  we  think  were  probably  always  venerable. 
AVe  can  more  easily  think  of  ourselves  as  wanting 
anything  else  than  time.  Youth  has  such  a  way  of 
prolonging  years  into  cycles  !  Perhaps  even  the 
queen  who  bid  so  high  for  that  single  inch  of  time 


YOUTH.  25 

was  once  young,  and  had,  as  you  have  now,  more 
of  it  at  her  disposal  than  she  knew  what  to  do  with. 

What  a  spendthrift  youth  is  of  health  !  A  pe- 
rennial spring  it  seems  of  an  inexhaustible  supply. 
Only  at  dawn  and  in  the  early  morning  the  fabled 
fountain  of  Ammon  overflowed,  but  this  fountain 
bubbles  and  leaps  and  shoots  high  its  waters  all  the 
long  day  of  youth.  What  wonder  that  like  careless 
servants  we  should  let  the  waters  waste,  too  ind lifer- 
ent to  husband  that  which  we  think  limitless  !  What 
would  not  the  old  man  give  for  even  a  few  drops 
of  those  waters  he  scattered  in  youth !  All  your 
wealth  then  will  not  seem  to  you  an  exorbitant  price 
for  that  of  which  you  think  now  as  without  value. 
More  than  Lucullus  ever  spent  on  any  of  his  ban- 
quets hard-headed  business-men  stand  ready  to  pay 
for  a  single  meal  of  the  simplest  sort  eaten  with  the 
appetite  of  health.  They  are  almost  ready  to  barter 
any  hopes  they  may  have  had  of  a  paradise  of  un- 
ending delights  for  a  day  of  such  fresh,  keen  joy 
as  they  had  almost  too  many  of  in  their  youth. 

What  a  spendthrift  youth  is  of  hope !  Its  exag- 
gerated vision  brings  everything  easily  within  the 
range  of  the  possible.  All  these  graduates  who 
will  emerge  this  spring  from  our  twelve  universi- 
ties and  three  hundred  and  thirty-three  colleges 
know  just  how  to  set  the  rivers  on  fire;  and  if  it 
is  worth  Avhile,  they  will  do  it.  They  will  put 
right  the  times  that  are  out  of  joint.  The  world 
has  waited  for  them  with  surprising  and  commend- 


26  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

able  patience,  but  the  world  shall  find  that  it  did 
well  in  waiting.  "Youth  faces  the  sun,  and  all 
the  shadows  fall  behind  out  of  sight."  Why  croak 
about  them?  Why  not  forget  that  there  are  any 
shadows?  Alas  that  even  such  apparently  inex- 
haustible treasures  should  at  last  fail — that  they 
who  once  saw  everything  rose-tinted  should  come 
at  last  to  see  everything  in  a  cold  hard  light  whose 
rays  are  like  javelins  stabbing  every  hope  dead  at 
the  moment  of  its  birth  ! 

What  a  spendthrift,  too,  youth  is  of  opportuni- 
ties !  They  are  so  bewilderingly  abundant !  Any 
effort  to  seize  them  is  like  plucking  flowers  in  an 
interminable  garden.  There  are  beds  everywhere 
as  far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  and  each  bed  seems 
more  beautiful  than  the  other.  Why  stop  here 
rather  than  there?  Just  as  the  hand  is  about  to 
gather  one  the  eye  catches  a  glimpse  of  another  more 
exquisite  still.  So  at  last  with  empty  hands  the 
exit  is  reached.  They  are  very  young  indeed  who 
do  not  look  back  already  to  other  days  when  there 
were  many  things  that  might  have  been  could  they 
but  have  brought  themselves  to  take  the  opportu- 
nity that  was  oifered,  but  it  seemed  so  improbable 
that  other  opportunities  still  more  desirable  would 
not,  and  that  very  soon,  come  within  reach,  that  for 
the  most  part  they  were  allowed  to  slip  by,  often 
without  any  recognition  whatever. 

"  Ah !  five  and  twenty  years  ago 
Had  I  but  planted  seeds  of  trees, 


YOVim.  27 

How  now  I  should  enjoy  their 
Shade,  and  see  their  fruit 
Swing  in  the  breeze  !" 

Most  fortunate  man  was  that  poet  if  he  had  noth- 
ing more  serious  to  lament  than  that.  There  are 
very  few  whose  memory  takes  them  back  even  half 
the  five  and  twenty  years  who  cannot  see  many 
places  where,  through  neglect  on  their  part,  much 
sadder  mistakes  were  made.  "  Had  we/'  they  say, 
"  but  studied  in  school  or  in  college,  w  hat  an  edu- 
cation we  might  have  had  !  Being  educated,  what 
might  we  not  have  accomplished  !  Had  we  been 
industrious  in  that  first  position  we  got  in  the  store, 
we  might  have  stayed  there  to  this  day,  and  been 
promoted  as  rapidly  as  some  we  know.  Had  we 
resisted  this  appetite  that  now  cries  with  loud  voice 
almost  ceaselessly  for  gratification,  it  might  long 
ago  have  been  quieted  or  hushed  altogether.  Had 
we  but  begun  at  this  or  that  epoch  to  live  as  we  feel 
now,  and  as  we  felt  then  we  ought  to  live,  by  this 
time  a  good  life,  an  open,  aggressive  Christian  life, 
would  have  become  almost  a  second  nature  to  us,  and 
the  agonies  through  which,  as  we  imagine,' at  least, 
we  must  now  pass  before  we  can  enter  on  such  a 
life  would  have  been  avoided  altogether.'^ 

Youth  is  rich,  too,  in  fancy.  There  are  no  col- 
ors on  the  painter's  palette  like  those  with  which 
youth  transforms  this  sombre  world.  It  is  optim- 
istic, or  should  be.  It  has  high  aspirations  and 
no  doubts  of  their  realization.     It  is  a  time  of  im- 


28  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

pressions — of  first  impressions.  The  world  is  all 
new.  Its  joys  and  its  sorrows  alike  come  with  the 
dew  on  them.  A  word,  a  gesture,  a  look,  are  pho- 
tographed on  the  sensitized  plate  that  youth  keeps 
always  exposed,  and  half  a  century  hence  the  lines 
made  in  that  minute  fragment  of  a  moment  will 
still  be  as  clear  as  on  the  first  day.  There  are  im- 
pressions traced  long  ago  on  your  soul  that  you 
would  willingly  erase.  You  can  forget  many  things 
with  only  too  great  ease.  The  book  you  read,  the 
scenes  you  saw,  the  conversation  you  heard,  yester- 
day, are  already  gliding  into  that  mist  that  swarms 
with  dim  and  vanishing  outlines  ;  but  the  book  you 
read,  the  scenes  you  saw,  the  conversation  you  heard, 
twenty  or  fifty  years  ago  are  as  distinct  as  if  but  an 
hour  had  passed.  The  same  events  could  not  cut 
themselves  as  deeply  now  into  your  memory.  The 
material  has  hardened.  It  is  crossed  and  recrossed 
with  lines,  and  the  cut  must  be  very  sharp  and  deep 
indeed  to  stand  out  clear  and  distinct  now  after 
many  days.  It  goes  without  saying  that  youth  is 
the  time  when  one  should  most  hesitate  to  expose 
one's  self  to  undesirable  impressions. 

Youth  is  as  impulsive  as  it  is  impressionable. 
"  The  heart  controls  in  youth ;  in  manhood  the 
head  takes  the  lead.''  It  would  be  sad  for  the 
world  if  the  epoch  of  impulse  were  altogether 
omitted.  There  would  be  few  mistakes  certainly 
if  we  were  all  born  into  that  period  where  the  head 
takes  the  lead,  but  there  would  as  certainly  be  few 


YOUTH.  29 

heroic  deeds  that  send  the  blood  rushing  with  almost 
dangerous  rapidity  through  the  veins,  and  that  give 
even  the  dull-eyed  a  glimpse  of  "  the  far-off  land 
of  beauty  and  of  goodness.'^  It  is  to  the  young 
the  world  looks  to  have  her  cold  old  heart  warmed 
now  and  then  by  some  chivalric  act,  by  some  splen- 
did exhibition  of  valor  and  of  self-sacrifice.  It  is 
to  the  young,  an  old  man  says,  the  worl<l  must  look 
for  even  intellectual  quickening.  "  New  ideas  build 
their  nests,"  he  says,  "  in  young  brains."  ""  Revo- 
lutions are  not  made  by  men  in  spectacles,  and  the 
whisperings  of  new  truths  are  not  caught  by  those 
who  begin  to  feel  the  need  of  an  ear-trumpet." 
The  outward  change,  the  dimmed  eye,  the  wrinkled, 
colorless  cheek,  the  trembling  hand,  have  ordina- 
rily their  counterpart  within.  Neither  heart  nor 
brain  can  escape  the  shriveling  touch  of  old  age. 
As  we  grow  old  we  become  stolid,  and  it  is  scarcely 
worth  while  for  a  great  thought  or  a  fine  impulse 
to  visit  us  then  for  the  first  time  and  run  the  risk 
of  being  refused  admission  as  a  stranger  or  of  being 
turned  out  ignominiously  as  a  disturber  of  the  peace. 
No  man  in  England  over  forty  years  of  age,  it  is 
said,  could  be  persuaded  at  the  time  it  was  made 
that  Harvey's  discovery  of  the  circulation  of  tlie 
blood  was  anything  but  a  plausible  theory  of  an 
ignorant  quack  calculated  to  deceive  only  the  super- 
ficially educated.  "  New  ideas  build  their  nests  in 
young  brains." 

Youth  is  the  age  of  faith — of  credulity,  if  you 


30  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

please.  No  Munchausen  tale  can  be  too  marvelous 
for  its  digestion.  The  wonders  of  the  Arabian  Nights 
are  not  half  wonderful  enough  for  its  appetite.  It 
has  no  experience  from  which  to  build  a  conception 
of  the  ordinary  or  the  possible.  It  must,  therefore, 
believe  what  it  hears  and  reads.  Every  man  is  re- 
ceived at  his  own  appraisement  by  the  young.  If 
he  claims  to  know  everything  and  to  be  able  to  do 
anything,  youth  has  no  inclination  or  reason  for  dis- 
puting his  most  colossal  assumptions.  A  difference 
of  six  months  in  age,  of  an  inch  in  stature,  is  sufficient 
to  make  a  hero  of  the  older  and  larger  boy  for  the 
younger  and  smaller.  Kings  do  not  so  overwhelm  us 
in  middle  life  as  the  big  boy  in  youth.  Every  child's 
father  is  the  strongest  and  wisest  and  best  man  in 
all  the  world,  from  whose  hand  it  is  almost  as  easy 
to  take  a  creed  as  to  take  an  apple.  The  most  stu- 
pendous statements  are  swallowed  with  nearly  as 
great  ease  as  is  the  most  luscious  fruit.  Fathers 
who  believe  anything  themselves  are  criminally  care- 
less if  they  do  not  make  wise  use  of  this  receptive 
period  to  write  their  own  faith  indelibly  on  the 
child's  heart. 

Youth  is  like  a  fair  uuwalled  city  open  to  the 
enemy  on  every  side.  Its  very  virtues  are  like  or- 
namented terraces,  concealing  enemies  in  their  ap- 
proach and  serving,  when  skillfully  used  by  an  adroit 
foe,  as  breastworks  affording  the  most  complete  pro- 
tection from  the  missiles  of  the  beleaguered.  With 
what  Satanic  ingenuity  has  each  of  those  qualities 


YOUTH.  31 

that  make  youth  most  attractive  been  used  to  ac- 
complish its  ruin  ! 

But  youth  is  by  no  means  an  unmixed  aggrega- 
tion of  virtues.  It  has  weaknesses  somewhat  pecu- 
liar to  itself,  as  well  as  numerous  others  that  are  the 
common  inheritance  of  humanity  at  every  epoch. 
Curiosity,  while  not  confined  to  youth,  is  supposed 
to  be  most  vigorous  then.  Pandora  was  very  young 
when  her  curiosity  got  the  better  of  her  and  she 
lifted  the  lid  of  the  forbidden  jar  and  filled  the  world, 
the  legend  says,  with  all  the  ills  that  trouble  men 
and  make  them  sometimes  doubt  whether  life  is 
worth  living.  It  is  in  youth  that  we  are  most 
tempted  to  follow  Pandora's  example  and  fill  our 
lives  with  evils  that  can  never  be  gathered  up  again 
and  thrust  back  into  the  jar  whose  lid  should  not 
have  been  disturbed.  Where  is  the  man  who  as  a 
boy  was  content  till  he  had  made  himself  half  sick 
with  a  cigar,  or  had  burnt  his  tongue  with  fire-water, 
or  had  defiled  his  lips  with  an  oath,  "just  to  see 
how  it  would  seem ''  to  do  those  things  that  he  saw 
other  half-grown  boys  and  men  doing  ?  "  You 
ought  to  try  it  and  see  what  it's  like  "  is  the  com- 
monest, and  not  infrequently  the  most  effective,  form 
of  temptation  with  which  youth  is  allured  into  the 
paths  whose  end  is  disappointment  and  pain  and 
death. 

There  are  stronger  desires  as  well  that  are  not 
satisfied  with  a  sip  and  a  taste.  Neither  are  thpse 
coarse  appetites  frightened   into  silence  when  the 


32  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

air  is  filled  with  flying  terrors  that  should  never 
have  been  let  loose.  The  most  destructive  exhi- 
bition of  passion  in  the  world's  history  has  been 
by  young  men.  Paris  was  young  when  to  grat- 
ify a  whim  he  plunged  Greece  and  Troy  into  a 
merciless  war.  Antony  was  young  when  he  sac- 
rificed an  empire  for  a  few  days  of  sensuous  joy. 
Napoleon  was  young  when  he  shook  every  throne 
and  laid  every  capital  of  Europe  under  tribute 
to  gratify  his  insatiable  ambition.  Even  Renan 
warned  the  students  of  Paris  the  other  day  not  to 
let  the  strong  desires  of  youth  raise  up  for  them 
ghosts  to  fill  the  air  with  their  maledictions. 

Youth  should  be — must  be — the  time  of  decision. 
You  are  the  prize,  young  men  and  maidens,  for 
which  hosts  contend.  The  aged  for  the  most  part 
are  already  apportioned,  but  both  Folly  and  Wis- 
dom lift  up  their  voices  and  plead  with  you.  You 
cannot  be  long  undecided.  You  will  consent  to  be 
led  in  the  mad  dance  of  death  or  straight  forward 
on  paths  of  pleasantness  and  peace.  This  is  a  time 
of  would-be  procrastination.  You  wish  to  wait. 
You  are  trying  to  conjugate  every  verb  in  the  fu- 
ture. You  like  to  say  what  you  will  do  after  a 
few  months  or  years.  But  God  is  pressing  you  by 
every  high  and  holy  motive  to  make  your  decision 
now  for  truth  and  righteousness  and  Christ.  Then 
you  will  be  a  divinely-directed  soul,  and  the  promise 
of  youth  shall  be  fulfilled  in  a  useful  manhood,  an 
honored  old  age  and  an  eternity  of  unspeakable  joy. 


III. 

FRIENDSHIPS. 


III. 

FRIENDSHIPS. 

"  A  man  that  hath  friends  must  show  himself  friendly  ;  and 
there  is  a  Friend  that  sticketh  closer  than  a  brother." — Prov. 
xviii.  24. 

THERE  are  cold-blooded  batrachian  creatures 
who  have  no  desire  for  friends.  "  We  can  do 
very  well,"  they  say,  ''  without  any  such  sickly 
sentimentality  as  that  form  of  selfishness  that  masks 
itself  under  the  romantic  guise  of  friendship.  It  is 
well  enough  for  very  young  people,'^  they  sneer, 
*Ho  swear  eternal  fealty  to  one  another  in  an  oath 
that  may  be  sacredly  kept  till  the  crescent  moon  that 
witnessed  it  becomes  a  completely  rounded  circle, 
but  men  who  have  cut  their  wisdom-teeth  see  that 
that  sort  of  thing  is  dangerous  business." 

When  you  let  outsiders  get  too  far  into  your  life, 
you  have  put  yourself  in  their  hands  and  you  are 
at  their  mercy.  You  have  doubled  the  complica- 
tions and  cares  of  life.  You  must  look  out  now  not 
only  for  yourself,  but  for  that  much-less-to-be- 
trusted  second  self  who  may  unmake  you  by  an  un- 
thinking admission  or  a  designed  disclosure.  The 
best  of  friends  are  broken  reeds  that  are  bound  sooner 

35 


36  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

or  later  to  pierce  the  hand  that  leans  upon  them, 
and  friends  of  the  average  sort  are  like  sand  between 
the  teeth  ;  the  sooner  you  get  rid  of  them,  the  better. 
This  is  a  very  uninviting  account  to  give  of  a  re- 
lation about  which  so  many  fine  things  have  been 
said,  but  the  men  who  give  it  us  are  not  ordinarily  par- 
ticularly fine  men.  They  talk  as  Guy  Fawkes  and 
his  accomplices  might  have  done  ;  and  if  their  great 
purpose  in  life  resembles  in  any  way  that  of  Fawkes, 
they  are  justified  in  being  as  chary  as  he  of  friend- 
ships and  confidences.  The  young  rarely  suffer 
from  such  aggravated  attacks  of  misanthropy.  A 
young  person's  heart  is  said  to  be  "  like  a  child's 
mouth,  into  which  everything  is  put."  They  are 
as  eager  for  friendships  as  for  candies  and  cakes 
and  ices,  and  are  as  ready  in  one  case  as  the  other 
to  accept  very  poor  imitations  in  place  of  the  pure 
article.  They  do  not  always  know  the  difference. 
Did  not  your  father  and  mine  understand  this? 
Else  why  did  they  warn  us,  when  we  went  to  the 
school  or  the  college  or  the  store,  to  make  haste 
slowly  in  our  friendships  ?  They  may  have  forgot- 
ten that  Shakespeare  ever  said, 

"  But  do  not  dull  thy  palm  with  entertainment 
Of  each  new-hatched,  unfledged  comrade." 

They  may  not  even  have  had  in  mind  the  warnings 
Solomon  sprinkled  thick  amongst  his  proverbs  for 
those  who  have  clasped  hands  and  exchanged  vows 
with  strangers ;  they  were  speaking  altogether  from 


FRIENDSHIPS.  37 

observation  and  experience,  but  that  did  not  make 
their  words  any  less  pointed  and  weighty. 

That  we  did  not  take  their  warnings  as  much  to 
heart  as  we  miglit  have  done  was  natural  too  :  our 
pride  was  a  little  hurt  that  it  was  thought  possible 
for  us  to  be  so  easily  deceived  as  to  make  such  warn- 
ings necessary.  It  was  hurt  a  little  more  at  the  in- 
sinuation that  our  friendship  was  not  such  a  suffi- 
cient prize  in  itself  as  to  make  it  necessary  to  suggest 
some  ulterior  motive  in  the  professed  seekers  of  it. 
And  when  the  warning  was  directed  toward  friends 
we  had  already  made,  it  took  on  a  still  less  attractive 
form.  How  unkind  it  seemed  to  arouse  suspicion 
of  one  so  fair  of  face  and  form  and  speech  and  man- 
ner, so  witty  and  wise,  as  our  dearest  friend !  How 
unfair  to  presume  that  if  there  was  anything  wrong 
we  who  knew  him  so  well  would  not  have  discovered 
it !  What  young  David  Copperfield  has  ever  had  a 
doubt  of  the  Steerforths  till  suggested,  and  has  not 
spurned  it  then  ?  Where  are  the  young  men  and 
the  young  maidens  who  believe  for  a  moment  that 
the  citadel  of  their  lives  may  be  in  greatest  danger 
from  attacks  made  under  the  guise  of  friendship, 
and  that  the  great  tempter  may  use  their  friend  as 
hunters  use  the  decoy  elephant  to  lead  his  unsuspi- 
cious acquaintances,  with  many  a  caress  of  his  pro- 
boscis, straight  to  the  traps  arranged  for  them  ?  If 
the  elephants  were  on  their  guard,  they  would  very 
quickly  detect  these  frauds ;  and  if  you  were  on  your 


38  BEOINNINO  LIFE. 

guard,  you  would  very  quickly  detect  these  false 
friends. 

There  are  certain  signs  that  always  betray  the 
dangerous  applicant  for  your  friendship.  One  of 
these  signs  is  frivolity.  It  does  not  necessarily  fol- 
low that  because  a  man  has  a  long  face  and  walks 
with  all  the  dignity  of  a  stork  he  is  particu- 
larly trustworthy.  Monkeys  steal  and  play  all 
sorts  of  mean  tricks  with  very  grave  countenances, 
but  the  creature,  man  or  woman,  that  is  always 
laughing,  that  giggles  in  the  school,  on  the  street 
and  in  the  church,  and  considers  no  fact  in  life  of 
any  significance  that  cannot  easily  be  giggled  over,  is 
a  mere  clown  to  whom  the  world  is  a  great  circus, 
and  the  giggling  you  hear  is  only  the  tinkling  of 
the  bells  in  the  fooPs  cap.  Wit  and  humor  are 
most  estimable,  most  desirable.  They  act  like 
springs.  While  they  do  not  smooth  the  road  more 
or  less  hard  we  all  must  travel,  they  ease  the  bumps 
and  jolts  most  pleasantly.  The  man  who  can  make 
others  laugh  a  clear,  ringing  laugh  with  no  Schuyl- 
kill-like  mud  in  it  prevents  many  a  visit  from  the 
family  doctor,  the  man  who  can  laugh  such  a  laugh 
himself  may  be  most  of  the  time  his  own  physician  ; 
but  perpetual  cachinnation  is  the  laughter  of  fools, 
that  to  Solomon's  wise  ear  sounded  like  "  the  crack- 
ling of  thorns  under  the  pot.''  There  is  no  depth, 
no  seriousness,  in  such  a  nature.  Beware  of  these 
gigglers  as  sailors  beware  of  waters  that  break  with 


FRIENDSHIPS.  39 

every  breeze  into  white-caps  and  foam.  There  are 
shallows,  quicksands,  perhaps,  under  those  pretty 
waves. 

Another  sign  that  should  warn  you  that  your 
would-be  friend  must  prove  a  dangerous  compan- 
ion is  cynicism.  He  smiles  often,  this  candidate 
for  favor,  but  there  is  no  spontaneity  to  it.  It 
sounds  more  like  a  hiss  than  like  a  laugh  as  it 
■comes  from  his  half-closed  teeth.  His  lip  curls 
constantly  at  mention  of  things  you  were  taught 
to  reverence.  He  sneers  at  all  the  "  old  worn-out 
ideas,''  so  he  calls  them,  of  industry  and  hon- 
esty, of  virtue  and  religion.  He  makes  his  mock 
at  the  Church  and  at  the  Sunday-school,  and  won- 
ders that  a  person  of  your  good  sense  can  counte- 
nance such  instruments  of  superstition.  He  more 
than  hints  that  only  children  pray  and  only  old 
women  and  weak-minded  men  read  their  Bibles. 
It  was  such  friends  that  laughed  one  of  the  strong- 
est-winged poets  of  England  out  of  the  faith  of  his 
early  manhood  and  left  him  to  die  without  hope,  a 
stranger  in  a  strange  land.  Such  friends  will  sneer 
away  your  belief  both  in  God  and  in  man.  They 
will  cover  with  ice  all  the  one-time  warm  springs 
of  feeling  and  emotion.  They  will  bring  you  to 
classify  men  of  every  sort  as  simply  as  they  have 
done  into  the  two  categories  of  the  "openly  bad 
and  the  secretly  bad."  They  will  take  away  your 
heart  of  flesh,  and  will  give  you  a  mere  muscle  like 


40  BEQINNINQ  LIFE. 

their  own,  whose  only  fanction  is  to  keep  up  the 
circulation.  They  will  steal  away  the  weapons  with 
which  you  once  guarded  your  treasures,  and  then 
they  will  steal  these  treasures  themselves,  persuad- 
ing you,  at  the  same  time,  that  they  all,  purity, 
truth,  honor,  virtue,  goodness,  God  or  man's,  have 
no  existence  except  in  the  diseased  imagination. 
They  will  leave  you,  like  a  disarmed,  dismantled 
and  stranded  ship-of-war  on  some  unknown  coast, 
with  nothing  to  fight  with  or  for.  Beware  of  such 
friends. 

Another  warning  sign  of  danger  from  a  would- 
be  friend  is  dissimulation.  He  comes,  this  candi- 
date for  favor,  with  no  ceaseless  laugh  of  frivolity 
or  perpetual  sneer  of  cynicism,  for  his  finger  is  upon 
his  lips,  as  if  detectives  were  on  his  track  and  as  if 
silence  were  his  only  hope.  He  whispers  the  com- 
monest facts  into  your  ear  as  if  they  were  dead  se- 
crets. He  has  unutterable  things  to  tell  you  which 
he  will  communicate  only  on  your  pledge  never  to 
breathe  them  to  any  one,  especially  to  your  parents 
and  your  teachers.  Only  rely  upon  him,  and  he 
assures  you  of  his  readiness  to  show  you  how  to  enjoy 
every  forbidden  pleasure  without  running  any  risk 
of  committing  the  unpardonable  sin  of  being  found 
out.  All  his  pockets  are  filled  with  a  peculiar  kind 
of  very  fine  dust,  which  he  throws  into  too  watch- 
ful eyes  with  the  greatest  skill.  These  "  friends  '^ 
are  in  every  school,  in  both  the  boys'  and  the  girls' 


FRIENDSHIPS.  41 

departments,  always  ready  to  give  unpaid  instruc- 
tion in  the  art  of  breaking  rules  without  being  caught. 
They  teach  the  boys  how  to  get  cigarettes  and  illus- 
trated newspapers,  and  the  girls  how  to  get  forbid- 
den sweets  and  yellow-backed  novels,  without  such 
old  fogies  as  parents  and  teachers  being  any  the  wiser. 
They  will  show  these  same  pupils  of  theirs,  as  they 
become  a  little  more  apt,  how  to  go  to  the  theatres 
and  to  visit  dance-halls  without  arousing  suspicion 
in  the  unsympathetic  hearts  of  their  aged  guardians. 
These  dissimulators  will  be  as  false  to  you  as  they 
are  false  to  the  old  folks  whom  they  are  teaching 
you  to  outwit.  They  are  false  to  you  now.  They 
are  giving  you  false  and  fatal  ideas  of  life  and  hap- 
piness ;  and  when  these  ideas  have  resulted  in  your 
ruin,  as  unhindered  they  inevitably  will,  the  dis- 
simulator, too  astute  to  be  caught  himself,  will 
stand  aside  and  laugh  at  you  for  going  so  far  down 
the  path  along  which  his  own  hand  pushed  you. 

Still  another  dangerous  sign  in  an  acquaintance 
who  desires  promotion  to  friendship  is  extrava- 
gance. It  shows  itself,  probably,  at  first,  only  in 
speech.  Every  sentence  is  overloaded  with  adjec- 
tives. As  the  spendthrift  handles  nothing  but 
gold  or  silver,  so  your  would-be  friend  deals  in 
no  smaller  coin  than  superlatives  and  compara- 
tives. He  sees  everything  on  an  exaggerated  scale. 
If  it  were  not  that  his  pulse  is  normal,  you  would 
easily  believe  him  to  be  breathing  pure  oxygen  all 


42  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

the  time.  By  just  so  much  as  he  exaggerates  him- 
self and  his  ways  he  belittles  you  and  yours.  He 
makes  you  ashamed  of  your  home :  it  is  so  unas- 
suming. He  calls  it  "inadequate^^  for  such  a  per- 
son as  you,  by  a  little  instruction  from  him,  would 
soon  become.  He  makes  you  ashamed  of  your 
old  father  and  mother..  He  is  very  careful  not  to 
say  so  in  words,  but  he  makes  you  feel  that  they 
are  hardly  such  progenitors  as  you  might  have  been 
expected  to  have.  Under  his  influence  your  manner 
toward  them  changes :  it  becomes  less  deferential, 
not  to  say  less  respectful.  You  feel  as  you  never 
did  before  that  they  are  by  no  means  necessary  to 
your  happiness,  and  that  they  might  easily  become 
hindrances  to  it.  He  makes  you  ashamed  of  your 
work.  You  were  ready  to  have  every  one  congrat- 
ulate you  like  a  cabinet-officer  six  months  ago,  when 
you  got  a  place  in  the  mill  or  the  store  or  on  the  rail- 
road ;  but  that  was  before  you  had  met  this  friend. 
He  isn't  doing  much  himself,  perhaps  nothing  at 
all  just  at  present,  but  he  makes  the  impression  on 
you  that  there  are  very  few  pairs  of  shoes  anywhere 
much  too  large  for  him  to  step  into  whenever  he 
chooses.  You  have  only  to  talk  with  him  a  few 
minutes  at  any  time  to  have  all  the  zest  taken  out 
of  your  work.  You  go  back  to  the  spindles  or 
the  counter  or  the  office  with  a  dull,  heavy  sense 
in  your  heart  that  all  this  is  beneath  you,  that 
you  ought  to  be  an  employer  instead  of  being  an 


FBTENDSHIPS.  43 

employ^,  a  wholesale  instead  of  a  retail  dealer,  a 
leader  in  society  instead  of  a  director  or  a  directress 
of  the  formless  thoughts  of  very  young  people  and 
little  children  to  uninteresting  and  stupid  subjects. 
His  touch  has  the  same  effect  upon  your  income  as 
upon  your  work  :  it  shrinks  into  itself  as  some  sen- 
sitive things  do  when  rudely  handled.  You  won- 
der that  you  were  ever  satisfied  with  it  as  you  see 
it  now  in  the  light  he  has  thrown  upon  it.  Why 
should  you  exert  such  abilities  as  he  assures  you  you 
possess — and  you  have  long  suspected  it — for  such 
an  insignificant  remuneration  ?  "  Almost  better  to 
take  nothing  at  all  than  so  little/^  you  say,  and  he 
says,  "Quite  right;  now  you  talk  like  yourself.^' 
So  you  give  up  the  position  that  has  become  too 
small  for  your  enlarged  self-conceit,  and  look  around 
for  something  really  first  class,  something  that  will 
be  worthy  of  your  hitherto  unrecognized  abilities. 
While  you  are  looking  you  find  some  things  for 
which  you  were  not  on  the  lookout.  You  find  that 
you  can^t  live  comfortably  on  big  words,  even  in- 
flated so  perfectly  as  your  friend's  words  are ;  that 
the  coat  you  thought  too  shabby  to  wear  Avhen  you 
gave  up  work  is  steadily  gaining  only  in  lightness 
of  weight  and  in  increased  reflective  power ;  that  the 
appraisement  you  had  set  upon  yourself  is  suffer- 
ing, in  spite  of  your  indignation  that  it  should  be  so, 
by  the  lack  of  demand  for  your  valuable  services. 
But  your  friend  does  not  desert  you.     He  reveals 


44  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

to  you  the  fact  that  there  are  many  ways  of  living 
well  without  going  through  the  commonplace  rou- 
tine of  what  is  called  "  making  a  living.''  He 
explains  to  you  how  feasible  some  of  these  are. 
It  is  an  opportune  moment  for  the  tempter,  such 
a  moment  as  Jacob  took  to  show  Esau  how  he  might 
have  a  good  meal  of  savory  pottage  without  getting 
it  for  himself;  so  opportune  that  you  too,  like  Esau, 
sell  your  birthright  as  a  son  of  God,  as  an  heir, 
through  Christ,  of  heaven,  for  the  thing  now  within 
your  reach  that  you  want  so  very  much. 

Or  your  extravagant  friend,  while  he  says  noth- 
ing about  your  work  or  your  income  from  it,  gives 
his  attention  to  your  recreations  and  amusements. 
They  have  always  been  of  the  simplest  and  least 
expensive  kind.  You  were  brought  up  to  think 
first  of  how  much  cloth  you  had,  and  then  of  how  to 
cut  the  pattern  to  fit  it ;  but  your  friend  soon  con- 
vinces you  that  this  is  a  very  plebeian  method  indeed. 
There  are  certain  forms  of  enjoying  one's  self  that 
are  entirely  respectable  and  appropriate.  Others 
may  be  cheaper,  but  they  are  impossible  except  to 
those  who  are  so  far  below  public  opinion  as  to  be 
indifferent  to  it.  That  these  are  expensive  is  unfor- 
tunately true,  but  this  is  no  reason  why  you  should 
deny  yourself  of  them.  Your  whole  style  of  liv- 
ing is  gradually  changed  to  suit  these  new  pleasures, 
and,  while  your  income  remains  the  same,  your  ex- 
penses have  been  doubled.     There  can  be  nothing 


FRTENDSRTPS.  45 

before  you  but  bankruptcy  or  Canada ;  and  Canada 
is  bankruptcy. 

But  you  will  reform  this  extravagant  friend  of 
yours.  He  is,  you  confess,  somewhat  too  fast  now. 
He  will  undoubtedly  be  ruined  financially,  social- 
ly, morally,  if  he  cannot  be  checked  in  his  impet- 
uous downward  course,  but  who  so  well  adapted 
to  put  on  the  brakes  as  yourself?  You  are  willing 
to  be  his  friend.  You  are  sympathetic;  you  under- 
stand him.  You  go  part-way  w^ith  him,  and  there- 
fore he  will  be  most  likely  to  halt  when  you  give 
the  sign,  and  retrace  his  steps  under  your  direction. 
You  may  give  the  sign  if  you  are  not  too  intoxi- 
cated yourself  with  the  delightful  rapidity  of  mo- 
tion, but  he  will  pay  as  much  attention  to  it  as  a 
runaway  horse  pays  to  a  child's  hand  on  the  rein. 
If  your  friend  is  to  be  reformed,  it  will  need  some 
one  older  and  firmer  than  yourself.  For  you  to 
go  part  way  with  him  will  only  mean  two  lives 
ruined  instead  of  one. 

This  capacity  for  friendship  of  which  we  are 
most  of  us  conscious — does  it  mean  nothing?  is  it 
never  to  be  gratified  ?  Are  you,  who  see  in  each 
new  acquaintance  a  possible  friend — one  who  shall 
understand  you,  who  shall  make  it  possible  for  you 
to  be  and  express  your  true  best  self, — are  you  to  be 
perpetually  disappointed  ? 

If  you  admit  into  your  life  these  frivolous,  cynical, 
dissimulating  and  extravagant  friends  against  whom 


46  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

you  have  been  warned,  you  will  have  made  the 
coming  of  the  true  friend  impossible.  A  man 
that  hath  friends  is  a  man  who  has  shown  himself 
friendly.  He  has  exhibited  such  qualities  as  attract 
real,  true  friends,  more  reliable,  even,  than  blood- 
relations.  Jonathan  never  would  have  given  his 
friendship,  one  of  the  purest  and  noblest  in  the 
world's  history,  to  David  if  David  had  not  been 
the  man  he  was.  It  was  because  Damon  was  worthy 
of  Pythias,  and  Pythias  worthy  of  Damon,  that  each 
thought  it  a  privilege  to  die  for  the  other.  The 
slightest  shadow  of  insincerity,  of  self-seeking,  in 
either  would  have  acted  upon  their  friendship  as  an 
insulating  substance  acts  upon  an  electric  magnet. 
The  two  hearts  held  so  tightly  together  by  the  mys- 
terious current  flowing  through  them,  that  even  death 
could  not  tear  them  asunder,  would  have  fallen  in- 
stantly apart  like  two  bars  of  iron  suddenly  demag- 
netized. 

For  a  true  friend  any  sacrifice  of  pride,  of  ambi- 
tion, of  ease,  comfort,  is  worth  making.  He  cannot 
be  kept  Avithout  a  willingness  to  make  such  a  sacri- 
fice should  it  be  needed.  For  a  true  friend  even 
the  sacrifice  of  his  friendship  is  worth  making  if 
the  occasion  calls  for  it.  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  thought 
this  the  final  test.  ''  Thou  mayest  be  sure,''  he  says, 
*'  that  he  that  will  in  private  tell  thee  of  thy  faults 
is  thy  friend ;  for  he  adventures  thy  dislike  and 
doth  hazard  thy   hatred."     If  done  in  the  right 


FRTENDSHIPS.  47 

spirit,  your  friend  is  giving  you  the  highest  possible 
proof  of  his  fricudsliip  when  he  opens  your  eyes  to 
see  some  fault  or  weakness  that  might  very  easily, 
if  undiscovered,  prove  fatal.  "  Faithful  are  the 
wounds  of  a  friend."  There  are  none  so  painful,  none 
that  cut  so  deep,  but  they  are  clean  and  healthy  and 
ought  to  heal  rapidly.  "  Better  be  a  nettle  in  the 
side  of  your  friend  than  his  echo." 

The  friend  such  as  we  desire  Emerson  thinks  is 
a  dream  and  a  I'able.  The  friend  who  is  perfectly 
true  and  perfectly  tender,  and  who  understands  us 
as  we  do  not  understand  ourselves,  is  to  be  found 
only  in  ideal  descriptions  ;  and  Emerson  is  right  if 
we  confine  our  search  unnecessarily,  as  he  seems  to 
have  done.  He  tells  us  of  the  world's  great  heroes 
and  seems  to  have  fathomed  their  virtues  and  vices, 
but  he  has  very  little,  if  anything,  to  tell  us  of  a  cer- 
tain Judean  Teacher  whose  character  has  now  been 
scrutinized  with  extremest  care  for  two  thousand 
years  without  the  discovery  of  a  single  blot.  Why 
will  not  this  Man  from  Nazareth  serve  as  the  ideal 
friend  ?  He  was  perfectly  true  and  perfectly  tender, 
and  he  constantly  showed  that  he  knew  more  of  men 
than  they  knew  of  themselves.  Why  cannot  the 
Goethes  and  Voltaires  and  R^nans  and  Emersons 
take  him  for  their  friend  if  they  will  not  take  him 
as  their  Saviour?  By  their  own  confession  he  was 
all  they  seek  or  could  desire.  They  posed  before 
the  world  as  philosophers,  but  has  he  a  right  to  be 


48  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

called  a  lover  of  wisdom  who  when  he  acknowledg- 
edly  sees  what  he  professes  to  seek  refuses  to  receive 
it?  We  do  not  call  ourselves  philosophers,  but  we 
may  easily  be  more  philosophical  than  they.  The 
ideal  friend  is  not  to  appear  in  some  distant  golden 
age :  he  has  appeared.  He  seeks  us  because  we 
have  need  of  him.  He  asks  us  to  be  enrolled  amongst 
the  number  of  his  friends.  "  Ye  have  not  chosen 
me,"  he  says,  "but  I  have  chosen  you."  The 
conditions  for  becoming  and  remaining  his  friend 
are  of  the  simplest  sort :  "  Ye  are  my  friends  if 
ye  do  whatsoever  I  command  you;"  and  his  com- 
mands are  not  impossible  or  unreasonable.  We  are 
to  love  one  another,  to  be  kind  and  forgiving  and 
helpful.  We  are  to  do  right  ourselves,  and  to  assist 
every  one  else,  as  far  as  we  can,  to  do  right.  This 
is  all,  and  in  return  he  will  befriend  us  always.  He 
will  give  us  the  use  of  his  name.  He  will  lend  us 
his  strength  as  we  struggle  with  our  appetites  and  our 
sins.  He  will  hold  our  hands  when  we  stumble ;  and 
when  we  come  to  the  river  from  the  touch  of  whose 
waters  we  all  shrink,  his  grasp  will  tighten  when  the 
grasp  of  other  hands  that  have  tenderly  pressed  our 
own  is  no  longer  felt.  He  will  be  with  us  in  the  new 
life  that  opens  beyond,  and  will  be  our  constant  guide 
and  instructor  till  the  home-feeling  comes  to  us. 
Why  should  you  live  a  day  longer  without  this 
Friend  ?  "  I  do  not  wonder,"  says  Ruskin,  "  at 
what  men  suffer ;  I  do  wonder  at  what  they  lose." 


IV. 
WHAT  SHALL  WE  READ  ? 


IV. 

WHAT  SHALL  WE  READ  ? 

"  Of  making  many  books  there  is  no  end :  and  much  study 
is  a  weariness  of  the  flesh." — Eccl.  xii.  13. 

SOLOMON'S  lament  over  the  endless  number 
of  books  in  the  world  would  have  gained  some- 
thing in  intensity  and  pathos  could  he  have  foreseen 
the  public  libraries  of  Berlin,  Paris,  London,  Wash- 
ington and  Philadelphia.  He  sighed  when  he  looked 
upon  a  few  hundred  carefully-copied  manuscripts 
lying  on  the  shelves  of  his  royal  library.  "  What's 
the  use,"  he  thought,  "  of  so  many  ?  No  man  can 
read  them  all.''  Wise  as  the  weary  king  was,  he 
could  have  had  no  conception  of  the  rate  at  which 
books  were  to  be  increased  later  on  in  the  world's 
history.  As  we  think  of  it  our  grief  at  the  burning 
of  two  hundred  thousand  volumes  at  Alexandria  is 
in  some  degree  assuaged. 

For  the  last  fifty  years  the  world  has  been  over- 
whelmed by  the  rising  tide  of  a  bibliographic  flood. 
It  is  no  longer  possible  to  place  boundaries  beyond 
which  it  cannot  pass.  Colossal  reservoirs  like  those 
at  Washington  have  })roven  ridiculously  inadequate. 
The  Oriental  metaphor  appears  on  the  verge  of 

51 


52  BEGINNIiYG   LIFE. 

transformation  into  a  fact :  not  even  the  world 
itself  will  be  able  to  contain  the  books  that  shall 
be  written.  The  danger  that  now  threatens  the 
race  is  a  new  deluge,  but  of  ink.  We  cannot  escape 
it.  We  must  plunge  in,  but  there  is  a  decided 
choice  among  the  pools.  Some  are  as  clear  as 
crystal ;  some  are  the  congenial  homes  of  foul  mud- 
monsters.  To  read  anything  or  everything  is  as 
dangerous  as  to  eat  anything  or  everything.  The 
results  may  be  as  much  more  serious  as  character 
is  of  more  value  than  health.  As  scarcely  any  other 
agency  has  a  more  marked  influence  than  books  upon 
character,  this  question  of  what  we  shall  read  is  im- 
mensely important.  Not  a  few  of  the  dangers  to 
which  we  are  exposed  in  reading  will  be  avoided 
by  the  adoption  of  some  general  plan  if  we  keep 
as  well  as  adopt  it.  As  curiosity  is  one  of  the  very 
first  and  strongest  qualities  exhibited  by  most  hu- 
man beings,  why  not  take  this  as  a  hint,  and  begin  by 
reading  books  that  will  satisfy  our  curiosity  ?  Facts 
are  the  food  which  this  appetite  in  a  healthy  condi- 
tion craves,  and  the  young  person  of  our  day  is 
invited  to  an  absolutely  inexhaustible  banquet  of 
facts,  in  spite  of  Dr.  Johnson\s  assertion — which 
may  have  been  true  when  made — that  "  nothing  is 
so  hard  to  get  at  as  a  fact." 

What  form  does  your  curiosity  take  ?  Are  you 
curious  to  know  something  about  this  earth  on 
which  you  live?  about  the  silent  planets  above? 
about  your  own   body  and   brain  ?     That  is  nat- 


WHAT  SHALL    WE  READ?  53 

ural ;  that  is  laudable.  And  here  are  books  on 
geology,  botany,  mineralogy,  on  astronomy,  on 
physiology  and  psychology  and  biology,  that  will 
answer  just  the  questions  that  are,  or  ought  to  be, 
on  the  ends  of  your  tongues.  Are  Dana  and  Gray 
and  Herschel  and  Hooker  and  Carpenter  and  Spen- 
cer a  little  too  thorough  in  their  anxiety  that  none 
of  your  questions  should  be  unanswered  ?  Does 
your  mind  wander  while  they  are  preparing  you 
to  understand  all  the  bearings  of  the  answer  they 
are  about  to  make?  Then  put  your  questions  to 
men  whose  intellectual  processes  are  more  rapid, 
if  not  always  so  exhaustive. 

Just  as  there  is  an  immense  amount  of  indiges- 
tion caused  by  food  not  adapted  to  the  tender  years 
of  the  eater  of  it,  so  is  there  intellectual  indiges- 
tion and  much  antipathy  caused  by  an  illy-adapted 
mental  diet.  You  and  I  might  have  been  very 
fond  of  certain  sciences  from  which  now  we  recoil 
if  we  had  not  taken  too  much  of  them  or  in  a  form 
too  condensed.  Our  children  ought  to  escape  such 
dyspeptic  attacks.  All  kinds  of  brain-food,  even 
scientific,  are  now  served  in  such  forms  as  to  be 
perfectly  digestible  for  the  young.  There  are  so- 
called  primers,  written  with  great  care  and  l)y  men 
of  great  learning,  on  each  of  the  sciences,  in  which 
you  will  find  your  questions  answered  most  simply 
and  interestingly.  You  will  not  have  the  right  to 
set  yourself  up  as  an  authority  on  the  particular  sub- 
ject about  which  you  have  just  read  a  "Primer,'^  but 


54  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

you  ought  at  least  to  be  able  to  comprehend  the 
force  and  drift  of  the  arguments  used  by  professed 
authorities,  and  you  will  not  feel  yourself  compelled 
to  give  an  unqualified  assent  to  the  wildest  scientific 
vagaries  because  you  are  aware  of  the  fact  that  you 
do  not  know  enough  to  do  anything  else.  The 
primer  will  at  least  have  taught  you  that  you  must 
have  scientific  proof  before  a  theory  can  be  accepted 
as  a  scientific  fact. 

Are  you  curious  to  know  what  has  happened  to 
the  race  of  which  you  are  a  part  since  it  first  found 
itself  on  the  earth,  under  the  stars  ?  Here  stand  his- 
torians in  a  long  line,  from  Herodotus  to  the  man 
who  passed  you  on  the  street  yesterday,  all  eager 
and  anxious  to  tell  you  just  what  you  wish  to  know. 
It  may  help  you  to  choose  amongst  all  these  appli- 
cants for  the  office  of  historical  instructor  to  your 
High  Mightiness  to  remember  what  Professor  Por- 
ter, ex-president  of  Yale  University,  says  of  histo- 
rians and  the  two  stages  to  one  or  the  oth(«r  of 
which  all  histories,  past,  present  or  future,  belong. 
The  first  stage,  he  says,  is  that  of  simple  narration, 
though  the  things  narrated  may  not  by  any  means 
be  simple  facts — will  probably  be  in  the  proportion 
of  one  fact  to  two  or  more  legends.  In  this  stage 
belong  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  of  Homer  and 
all  the  mythical  stories  that  have  come  down  to 
us  of  heroes  like  Romulus  and  Remus  and  demi- 
gods like  Theseus  and  Hercules.  To  the  second 
stage,   in    which    two    marked    phases   are  distin- 


WJTAT  SHALL    WE  READf  55 

guishecl,  are  placed  the  histories  of  Herodotus, 
Thucydides,  Tacitus  and  Caesar.  Here  the  propor- 
tion of  fact  and  fancy  or  legend  is  changed.  Now  the 
facts  largely  preponderate;  the  legend  diminishes, 
till  in  the  last  development  of  this  second  phase  it 
disappears  altogether.  We  have  come  now  to  the 
critical  and  philosophical  type,  the  last  and  highest 
of  which  history  is  capable.  We  no  longer  have 
incredible  legends  of  heroes  or  interminable  lists  of 
war-galleys  and  phalanxes,  or  of  battles  on  sea  or 
land,  but  the  causes  of  things  are  ferreted  out  and 
explained.  The  development  of  a  nation  now  over- 
tops in  importance  the  fate  of  a  beautiful  woman  or 
that  of  an  extraordinarily  strong  man.  This  epoch 
began.  Professor  Porter  says,  with  Niebuhr,  and  all 
the  best  historians  since  have  taken  their  color  from 
it.  Every  young  person  should  wish  to  know  some- 
thing of  each  of  these  stages,  for  we  cannot  under- 
stand any  one  of  them  unless  we  have  some  knowl- 
edge of  the  others ;  we  cannot  understand  the  pres- 
ent without  knowing  something  of  the  past.  It  is 
history  that  teaches  us,  as  Lowell  says,  "why  things 
are  and  must  be  so,  and  not  otherwise." 

We  must  make  a  place  here,  if  anywhere,  for  the 
newspaper.  It  has  made  a  very  large  place  for  it- 
self, and  is  supremely  indiiferent  as  to  whether  it  is 
classified  or  not.  It  is  the  most  high-handed  of  all 
monopolists.  It  drives  all  rivals  from  the  field. 
It  excludes  with  rare  impartiality  all  other  forms 
of  printed  matter,  from  the  bulky  volume  to  the 


56  BEGINNING   LIFE. 

magazine  ;  and  yet  this  monster  of  insatiable  maw 
has  its  rights.  The  present  is  of  at  least  equal  in- 
terest for  us  with  the  past.  If  we  are  properly 
curious  to  know  what  happened  a  thousand  years 
ago,  why  may  we  not  with  equal  propriety  be  inter- 
ested in  knowing  what  happened  yesterday  ?  When 
you  read  the  telegram  in  your  newspaper  that  Paris 
had  capitulated  to  the  Prussian  king  and  his  Ger- 
man allies,  you  were  put  in  possession  of  an  histori- 
cal fact  of  as  great  significance  as  the  Homeric  an- 
nouncement of  the  capture  of  Troy  by  Ulysses. 
When  you  read  of  the  assassination  of  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, you  were  getting  news  quite  as  momentous  as 
that  you  had  read  in  your  ancient  history  of  the 
murder  of  Julius  Csesar.  The  newspaper  has  its 
legitimate  field  if  we  could  but  keep  it  there,  but  it 
becomes  the  tyrant  of  modern  life  when  it  drives 
out  all  rivals,  as  it  is  doing  so  effectually  that  pos- 
sibly the  majority  of  masculine  readers  never  read 
anything  else.  They  take  their  three  newspapers  a 
day  as  regularly  as  their  three  meals,  lowering  the 
average  only  a  little  by  reducing  the  allowance  to 
one  on  the  first  day  of  the  week. 

Also  young  persons  ought  to  be  specially  curious 
as  to  the  history  of  their  own  country.  ^'  Know 
thyself"  was  the  best  thing  the  Delphic  oracle  ever 
said  in  its  inscriptions  or  its  utterances.  This  wis- 
dom is  as  applicable  to  the  state  as  to  the  individual. 
It  is  specially  applicable  to  a  republic  like  our  own. 
If  we  are  to  have  a  successful  government  of  the  peo- 


WHAT  SHALL   WE  READ?  57 

pie,  for  the  people,  by  the  people,  we  the  people 
must  know  what  we  are  trying  to  do,  and  why.  It 
is  by  no  means  difficult  to  find  young  persons  of  both 
sexes  who  are  more  familiar  with  the  history  of 
Rome  and  France  and  England  than  with  the  story 
of  our  own  nation.  That  the  theme  is  a  vast  and 
intensely  interesting  one  is  being  recognized  by  the 
best  historical  writers  on  both  sides  of  the  sea.  We 
have  no  excuse  for  ignorance  when  such  brilliant 
and  fascinating  teachers  as  the  American  McMaster 
and  the  English  Bryce  are  perpetually  ready  to  en- 
lighten us. 

But  when  your  questions — scientific,  historical, 
aesthetic — have  been  answered  and  your  curiosity 
has  been  satisfied,  you  cannot  give  over  reading  if 
you  wish  your  curiosity  to  end  in  culture.  Mat- 
thew Arnold  defines  the  cultured  person  as  the  one 
"  who  knows  the  best  that  has  been  thought  and 
said  in  the  world,"  but  one  of  our  own  poets  lets  us 
look  upon  a  man  who  knew  all  these  things  and 
had  failed  of  culture : 

"  'Twould  be  endless  to  tell  you  the  things  that  he  knew — 
All  separate  facts  undeniably  true, 
But  with  him  or  each  other  they'd  nothing  to  do. 
No  power  of  combining,  arranging,  discerning, 
Digesting  the  masses  he  learned  into  learning." 

So  Burke  thought  that  the  cultured  man  is  one  who 
not  only  is  in  possession  of  the  facts,  but  has  also 
"  the  power  of  diversifying  the  matter  infinitely  in 
his  own  mind  and  applying  it  to  every  occasion  that 


58  JBEGIN^^INO  LIFE. 

arises."  It  is  this  power  that  the  study  of  philoso- 
phy should  develop.  Such  reading  is  not  seduc- 
tively attractive  to  young  people  at  first.  Philoso- 
phy, they  say,  for  some  one  has  told  them  so,  is  a 
great  circle  around  which  you  may  make  your  weary 
journey  only  to  return  to  the  point  from  which  you 
started ;  but  in  swinging  round  the  circle  many 
interesting,  beautiful  and  useful  things  may  be  dis- 
covered. About  the  best  way  to  find  out  how  large 
a  circle  is  and  what's  inside  of  it  is  to  make  the 
circumference  of  it.  Philosophical  reading  will  be 
of  immense  advantage  to  yoimg  people  if  it  teaches 
them  the  limits  of  the  human  mind,  the  boundaries 
of  thought.  Swinging  round  the  circle  may  save 
them  many  a  tiresome  and  dangerous  jaunt  in  quest 
of  panaceas  that  philosophy,  rightly  understood, 
would  convince  them  can  have  no  existence. 

luiagi nation  is  another  faculty  of  the  mind  that 
is  hungry  for  food  and  that  has  a  right  to  be 
fed.  There  is  no  dearth  of  such  pabulum.  Public 
libraries,  book-stores,  news-stands,  have  their  shelves 
and  counters  filled  with  imaginative  works.  The 
book  you  were  reading  last  night — I  hope  not  this 
afternoon — was  a  novel.  Nine  out  often  of  the  books 
you  will  take  away  with  you  on  your  summer  va- 
cation will  be  novels.  Four  paper-covered  novels 
a  day  is  the  allowance  that  a  certain  Western  lady 
at  one  time  permitted  herself.  This  is  to  turn  a 
human  being  into  a  gargoyle.  Such  a  stream  flow- 
ing through  the  brain  can  leave  behind  it  nothing 


WHAT  SHALL   WE  BEAD?  59 

but  a  muddy  sediment.  Better  not  read  at  all  than 
read  in  such  a  way.  But  there  are  works  of  the 
imagination  against  which  no  such  charge  can  be 
laid.  Scott  and  Cooper  and  Mrs.  Stowe  and  Mrs. 
Whitney  and  Charles  Dickens  and  Charles  Reade  have 
written  novels  that  have  become  the  fountain-heads 
of  great  reforms.  The  battle  of  faith  and  unbelief, 
Mr.  Gladstone  and  Dr.  McCosh  think,  is  to  be  fought 
largely  for  the  next  fifty  years  in  the  pages  of  romance. 
Let  the  book  you  read  be  clean  tlirough  and  through. 
Let  it  be  one  that  will  give  you  a  serious  and  sensi- 
ble view  of  life.  Let  it  be  one  of  high  literary  merit ; 
and  if  it  be  made  to  take  its  place  among  the  luxu- 
ries, and  not  the  necessaries,  such  a  romance,  if  it 
be  read  not  on  the  sly,  but  with  your  parents'  con- 
sent, may  be  for  you  what  Spenser  calls  one  of 

"  The  world's  sweet  inns  from  care  and  wearisome  turmoil." 

All  poetical  works,  from  Dante  to  Shakespeare, 
from  Milton  to  Whittier,  must  be  classified  as  works 
of  the  imagination.  They  are  not  in  the  strict  sense 
historic,  scientific  or  philosophical,  but  they  may  be 
none  the  less  valuable  for  that.  There  are  practical, 
hard-headed — perhaps  hard-hearted — men  who  enter 
their  protest  against  anything,  be  it  rhythm  or  blank 
verse,  every  line  of  which  begins  w  ith  a  capital.  If 
a  man  has  a  thought,  why  not  express  it  in  the  sort 
of  language  in  which  we  all  think?  Why  dress  it 
np  in  this  fantastic  guise?  Ah,  my  hard-headed, 
hard-hearted  friend,  poets  are  born,  not  made;  neither 


60  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

can  they  be  unmade  by  a  protest.  Have  you  for- 
gotten that  the  Psalms  are  poems,  and  that  the  book 
of  Job  is  what  Carlyle  calls  the  grandest  poem  ever 
written  ? — though,  unfortunately,  the  poetic  form  is 
concealed  in  King  James's  version  in  both  instances. 
The  Most  High  has  set  his  approval  on  poetry,  as 
he  did  also  on  imaginative  prose,  when  the  Christ 
spake  only  in  parables.  There  are  many  things 
that  it  is  well  for  you  to  deny  yourself,  but  Tenny- 
son, Longfellow,  Whittier  and  Browning  do  not 
belong  to  that  category. 

If  we  make  a  wise  use  of  historical,  scientific, 
philosophical  and  imaginative  books,  then  material 
enough  w^ill  have  been  gathered  for  a  rich  and  well- 
rounded  life  if  all  is  concentrated  upon  some  worthy 
purpose.  This  opens  up  a  field  for  all  inspirational 
works  of  every  sort.  There  are  numberless  books 
suited  to  every  taste  that  designedly  attempt  to  im- 
bue their  readers  with  lofty  ideals  of  life.  Perhaps 
the  most  famous  of  these  are  The  Imitation  of  Christ, 
by  Thomas  k  Kempis,  and  The  Pilgrim's  Progress, 
by  John  Bunyan — a  book  that  Macaulay  ranks  with 
Milton's  Paradise  Lost. 

The  biographies  of  all  heroic  human  souls,  of  every 
faith  and  time,  are,  though  it  may  be  undesignedly, 
intensely  inspirational.  From  the  life  of  St.  Augus- 
tine to  that  of  Stephen  Grellet  and  Edward  Pay- 
son,  there  is  no  story  of  triumph  over  the  unholy 
trinity  of  the  world,  the  flesh  and  the  devil  that  will 
not  ennoble  our  conception  of  humanity  and  fill  us 


WHAT  SHALL   WE  MEAD?  61 

with  a  desire  to  emulate  these  godly  examples.  A 
well-written  biography  will  be  for  the  unspoiled 
reader  as  interesting  as  a  novel,  and  the  substitution 
of  the  story  of  real  life  for  the  romance  will  be  an 
unmistakable  gain. 

France  has  just  passed  through  an  unexampled 
literary  excitement.  A  book  was  thrown  almost 
unheralded  upon  the  market,  and  was  bought  up 
with  such  avidity  that  the  presses  could  not  supply 
the  demand.  It  was  reviewed  at  length  by  the 
leading  newspapers  of  Paris  and  the  provincial 
cities.  There  was  but  one  opinion  as  to  its  interest 
and  extreme  value.  It  was  not  written  by  any  of 
the  popular  literary  favorites  of  the  day.  It  was  a 
translation  of  an  old  Greek  book  known  to  us  as 
"  The  New  Testament  of  our  Lord  and  Saviour  Jesus 
Christ.^'  Most  Frenchmen  knew  in  a  vague  way 
that  there  was  such  a  book.  They  had  heard  their 
priests  refer  to  it  and  they  had  seen  selections  from 
it  in  their  prayer-book,  but  very  few  of  them  had 
ever  seen  a  complete  copy  in  French.  When  Las- 
sarre's  translation,  with  the  benediction  of  the  fish- 
erman His  Holiness  the  pope,  appeared,  it  was  like 
a  new  revelation  from  Heaven.  It  was  read  in  the 
caf^s,  it  was  discussed  on  the  boulevards,  and  it 
might  have  been  the  forerunner  of  such  days  as  pre- 
ceded St.  Bartholomew's  had  not  the  Jesuits  become 
alarmed  and  persuaded  the  pope  to  revoke  his  bene- 
diction, and  to  place  the  book  on  the  Index  Expiir- 
gatorlus.     We  have  that  book  in  our   homes ;  no 


62  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

papal  fulminatioii  can  touch  it.  How  often  do  we 
read  it?  Do  we  permit  it  to  be  pushed  aside  by  his- 
tories and  newspapers  and  magazines,  by  works  on 
science  and  art,  by  romances  and  poems,  by  books  of 
ethics  and  biography  ?  We  make  a  mistake.  This 
book  combines,  as  no  other  does,  as  all  others  fused 
into  one  would  not,  history,  philosophy,  biography, 
high  ideals  and  imperial  purposes.  "  It  is  the  best 
book  that  ever  was  or  ever  will  be  written,"  said 
Charles  Dickens  in  a  letter  to  his  sou.  ^'  Where- 
withal shall  a  young  man  cleanse  his  way  ?  by  taking 
heed  thereto  according  to  thy  word."  Other  books 
may  lead  you  right  for  a  time,  and  then,  from  ig- 
norance of  the  way  themselves,  leave  you  in  the 
pathless  desert  or  the  trackless  forest ;  but  no 
human  being  has  ever  honestly  followed  this  guide 
that  was  not  brought  safe  home  at  last.  Better  for 
any  of  us  to  neglect  reading  of  any  other  sort  rather 
than  neglect  this.  We  might  thus  cheat  ourselves 
now  and  then  of  some  "sweet  inn  from  care  and 
wearisome  turmoil ;"  but  if  there  must  be  any  choice, 
better  cheat  yourself  of  an  inn  or  two  along  the  way 
than  of  the  eternal  home  at  the  end  of  the  journey. 
Take  down  from  the  shelf,  where  it  fell  unnoticed 
months  ago  behind  histories  and  novels,  the  Bible 
your  mother  gave  you,  and  read  with  care  and  atten- 
tion never  before  given  to  it  the  biography  you  will 
find  in  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke  and  John.  Read  in 
the  book  of  the  Acts  and  in  the  Epistles  how  men^s 
lives  were  changed  by  the  touch  of  that  life.     See 


WHAT  SHALL    WE  READ?  63 

how  the  enthralled  of  passion  and  appetite  were  freed, 
how  the  hopeless  gained  courage,  how  the  restless 
and  objectless  found  peace  and  a  motive,  and  as  you 
read  the  stolid,  despairing  look  in  your  eyes  will 
fade  away.  A  new  hope  will  steal  like  a  blessed 
spirit  into  your  heart,  and  you  will  dare  to  do  battle 
with  yourself  and  the  world  in  the  inspiration  that 
has  come  to  you  from  that  most  human,  most  divine 
life. 


V. 

THE  FORf  NG  OF  HABITS, 


V. 

THE  FORMING  OP  HABITS. 

"  Be  not  overcome  of  evil,  but  overcome  evil  with  good." — 
Rom.  xii.  21. 

ARISTOTLE,  who  was  flimiliarly  called  ^^the 
Surgeon'^  from  the  keenness  of  his  intellect- 
ual discrimination,  was  accustomed  to  say,  "A 
raan  has  formed  a  good  habit  when  it  causes  no 
self-denial.'^  Any  act,  good  or  bad,  has  become 
habitual  when  it  is  performed  automatically  and 
involuntarily.  The  momentum  of  many  choices 
in  the  past  makes  any  immediate  action  of  the  will 
unnecessary.  It  is  a  condition  that  has  close  anal- 
ogies to  slavery  where  choice  and  action  have  no 
relation  whatever.  It  is  not  unusual  to  hear  a 
man  confess  tliat  '^  he  is  a  slave  to  habit." 

The  grip  that  habit  has  upon  all  human  beings 
results  necessarily  from  our  make-up.  If  we  were 
pure  intelligences,  with  no  material  enswathment, 
the  power  of  habit  would  be  lessened,  perhaps,  to 
an  altogether  inappreciable  point;  but  the  spirit 
has  its  setting  in  matter :  we  are  resultants  of  the 
intermingling  of  these  two  diverse  elements,  and 

67 


68  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

we  become,  in  spite  of  every  effort  to  the  contrary, 
bundles  of  habits. 

The  soul  is  a  prisoner  in  its  invisible  holy  of 
holies,  and  can  send  out  or  receive  communications 
only  by  impressions  made  on  the  walls  of  its  dun- 
geon. Light  and  sound  come  to  it  through  little 
apertures  easily  closed,  shutting  the  captive  in  to 
perpetual  darkness  and  silence.  Other  sensations 
are  carried  along  prepared  channels  from  the  ex- 
ternal world  to  the  royal  prisoner  within.  Here 
is  a  practically  inexhaustible  field  for  the  develop- 
ment of  habits.  The  body  is  not  a  perfectly  flexi- 
ble instrument  for  the  soul :  it  permits  the  soul  to 
express  itself  only  within  well-defined  limits,  and 
the  soul,  becoming  accustomed  to  these,  ends  by 
accepting  the  situation.  AVhat  that  situation  is  to 
be  which  is  finally  accepted  depends  very  largely 
upon  the  moral,  intellectual  and  physical  habits 
that  are  formed  before  the  gristle  has  altogether 
turned  to  bone. 

This  is  the  purpose  that  all  wise  parents  and 
teachers  have  before  them  constantly  in  dealing 
with  their  children  and  scholars.  They  try  to 
bring  every  influence  and  motive  to  bear  upon 
both  mind  and  body,  that  right  thinking  and  right 
acting  may  become  habitual.  Until  a  child  can 
walk  without  any  conscious  effort  at  balancing  it- 
self it  does  not  know  how  to  walk ;  until  it  can 
eat  without  having  to  think  where  its  mouth  is 
and  how  to  put  the  spoon  into  it,  it  does  not  know 


THE  FORMING   OF  HABITS.  69 

how  to  eat;  until  it  can  read  and  write  Avithout 
having  to  spell  each  word  that  is  now  on  the  paper 
or  that  it  wishes  to  put  there,  it  knows  how  neither 
to  read  nor  to  write.  When  the  child  or  the  youth 
or  the  man  does  what  he  has  to  do  without  even 
thinking  that  he  is  duing  it  till  his  attention  is  called 
to  it,  then  he  knows  that  particular  thing ;  it  takes 
its  place  among  the  number  of  his  iiabits. 

In  the  beginning  each  one  of  these  new  auto- 
matic actions  was  difficult,  distasteful ;  there  was  a 
disinclination  to  attempt  it  which  had  to  be  over- 
come by  some  reward.  There  is  a  celebrated  French 
picture  of  a  great  room  in  the  royal  palace  where 
the  young  heir  to  the  throne  is  being  taught  to  walk. 
The  little  fellow  is  encircled  by  a  crowd  of  courtiers 
encouraging  him  to  make  the  attempt  in  spite  of 
the  risk,  but  the  arguments  that  are  most  influen- 
tial on  tlie  royal  heart  are  the  ribbons  and  decora- 
tions that  the  officers  take  from  their  own  breasts 
and  hold  out  toward  the  prince.  Then  he  walks. 
So  you  took  your  first  steps  because  you  wanted 
something — ^your  father's  watch  or  your  grandfa- 
ther's cane.  You  began  to  read  and  write  for  hope 
of  a  sugar-plum  or  for  fear  of  a  whip.  But,  what- 
ever was  the  original  cause  of  the  action,  it  left 
its  mark  on  brain  and  muscle.  It  opened  up  ducts 
and  channels  that  did  not  exist  before,  and  along 
these  very  soon  currents  flowed  so  silently  and 
smoothly  that  you  were  scarcely  conscious  of  them. 

An  old  soldier  crossing  the  parade-ground  one 


70  BEGINNING    LIFE. 

day,  carrying  in  both  hands  a  large  bowl  of  soup 
for  his  dinner,  suddenly  heard  the  ringing  com- 
mand, "Attention  !''  and,  instantly  dropping  his 
dinner,  he  stood  erect  with  hands  by  his  side,  while 
his  friends  who  had  played  this  practical  joke  upon 
him  chuckled  delightedly  over  the  success  of  it. 
Long  years  ago  the  soldier  had  been  so  thoroughly 
drilled  in  obedience  to  that  command  that  when 
the  ear  heard  the  word  the  order  went  so  swiftly 
along  the  well-worn  track  to  the  muscle  and  nerve 
that  there  was  no  time  for  the  judgment  to  give 
any  opinion  whatever  in  the  matter. 

It  is  perfectly  true  of  all  mankind,  as  Paley  says, 
that  "they  act  more  from  habit  than  reflection." 
You  became  very  angry  in  a  moment  yesterday. 
It  was  wholly  unexpected.  You  were  as  intent  as 
the  old  soldier  upon  something  you  were  doing, 
when  some  evil  spirit  shouted  its  command,  "  Fire  !" 
and  you  dropped  everything  to  discharge  an  almost 
fatal  load  straight  at  the  heart — perhaps  of  your 
best  friend.  You  were  possibly  not  very  much 
more  to  blame  for  that  particular  act  than  the  old 
soldier  was  for  dropping  his  dinner,  but  you  were 
to  blame  for  forming  the  habit  of  obedience  to  such 
evil  passions.  You  were  profane  yesterday,  to  your 
own  disgust  and  that  of  your  friends.  You  had 
no  expectation  of  swearing — yon  had  determined 
that  you  would  not — but  the  evil  spirit  uttered  its 
harsh  command,  and  oaths  flew  from  your  mouth 
like  stones  from  a  catapult.      You  told  a  lie  yes- 


THE  FORMING   OF  HABITS.  71 

terday — the  first  for  many  days,  and  the  one  just 
before  it  was  to  have  been  your  last.  It  was  not 
premeditated  :  you  were  entrapped  into  it  as  the 
old  soldier  was  into  his  mistake.  Some  evil  spirit 
too  often  obeyed  aforetime  gave  the  command,  and 
you  did  what  a  moment  afterward  you  were  angry 
at  yourself  for  having  done.  You  made  a  dishon- 
est bargain  yesterday,  and  the  money  burns  now  in 
your  purse.  You  thought  you  never  would  do  it 
again ;  it  seemed  to  you  that  there  was  not  money 
enough  in  the  United  States  to  tempt  you  to  get 
any  of  it  wrongfully.  But  there  was,  alas !  It 
was  only  a  few  dollars  that  you  got,  but  the  old 
enemy  and  master  told  you  to  take  them,  and  it 
was  done  before  you  had  time  to  think.  The  old 
soldier  only  lost  his  dinner  by  his  involuntary  act, 
but  you  have  lost  the  respect  of  your  fellow-men 
and  your  self-respect  and  the  bright  hope  you  had 
a  little  while  ago  that  you  were  to  be  henceforth  a 
free  man. 

We  have  all  formed  the  habit  of  giving  atten- 
tion to  voices  that  should  be  unheard.  One  would 
need  to  speak  to  an  audience  of  infants  in  arms 
who  should  wish  to  address  those  who  had  formed 
no  bad  habits,  and  even  then  it  would  be  too 
late.  We  may  take  it  for  granted,  as  the  apostle 
does,  that  the  question  is  not  so  much  of  the  form- 
ing as  of  the  changing  of  habits.  Paul  is  very 
outspoken  to  his  friends  in  Rome  concerning  some 
of  the  bad  ways  into  which  they  have  fallen,  but 


72  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

he  doesn't  consider  their  condition  hopeless.  These 
bad  habitSj  he  says,  may  be  overcome  by  good  ones. 
He  has  very  little  faith  in  any  efforts  they  may 
make  simply  to  give  up  doing  wrong  and  break 
away  from  old  bad  habits,  but  he  has  great  faith 
in  a  determination,  with  trust  in  God,  to  do  right, 
and  in  the  forming  of  new  good  habits.  It  doesn't 
do  much  good  to  tear  up  weeds  and  leave  the  ground 
fallow :  it  must  be  sown  with  grass  or  grain,  and 
this  will  fight  the  weeds  and  run  them  out.  Tear 
up  your  degrading  habits,  says  the  apostle,  and  sow 
the  empty  heart  with  the  good  seed.  You  will 
cease  to  obey  the  devil's  "Attention  !"  when  you 
accustom  yourself  to  obey  God's  "Be  not  over- 
come of  evil,  but  overcome  evil  with  good." 

Is  it  possible?  Was  Aristotle  right  or  was  he 
dreaming  when  he  thought  that  a  good  habit  may 
become  such  a  second  nature  as  to  cause  no  self-de- 
nial? We  may  move  firmly  here,  for  the  solid 
ground  of  experience  is  still  under  our  feet.  You 
have  formed  some  good  habits ;  you  are  as  sure  of 
these  as  of  your  bad  habits.  It  is  easier  for  you  to 
do  right  in  some  directions  than  it  is  to  do  wrong. 
You  could  say  the  multiplication  table  correctly 
in  half  the  time  you  could  give  false  results  to  five 
times  six  or  seven  times  nine.  You  speak  fairly 
good  grammar  with  greater  ease  than  you  speak  bad 
grammar.  You  would  have  to  think  to  make  a 
mistake,  and  you  do  not  have  to  think  to  make  a 
correct  sentence.    It  makes  itself;  habit  does  it.    It  is 


THE  FORMING   OF  HABITS.  73 

easier  for  you  ordinarily  to  tell  the  truth  than  it  is 
to  do  anything  else.  The  channels  in  your  brain  are 
straight,  and  not  spiral.  You  have  got  in  the  habit 
of  seeing  things  as  they  are,  and  of  reporting  cor- 
rectly what  you  see.  The  shuttles  of  your  brain 
have  become  accustomed  to  weaving  a  fabric  of  that 
particular  kind ;  it  would  need  a  change  almost  as 
organic  as  that  of  putting  in  new  machinery  for  it 
to  weave  lies  instead  of  truths.  A  musician  like 
Von  Bulow  or  Rubinstein  or  Hoffman  sits  at  the 
piano  when  the  twilight  has  so  deepened  that  your 
eyes  cannot  distinguish  the  black  keys  from  the 
white,  and  for  hours  he  dreams  in  melodies,  and 
his  fi nosers  find  in  the  dark  all  the  strano-e  combina- 
tions  of  notes  needed  to  make  these  dreams  audible 
to  your  ear.  It  is  all  very  marvelous,  and  perfectly 
natural.  Give  the  musician  a  pencil  and  ask  him 
to  sketch,  or  a  chisel  and  ask  him  to  carve,  and  his 
movements  are  awkward  and  the  results  ludicrous. 
New  machinery  must  be  created  for  the  new  work. 
It  is  impossible  in  a  day  or  a  week  to  make  the 
shuttles  that  wove  harmony,  weave  outlines  and 
forms.  We  hear  of  orators  like  Burke  and  Webster 
and  Bright — for  whom  the  English-speaking  world 
still  weeps — needing  only  a  great  occasion  to  throw 
the  shuttle,  when  a  magnificent  oration  was  woven 
with  as  little  effort,  apparently,  as  that  with  which 
a  loom  weaves  a  carpet,  and  we  are  amazed.  We 
forget  the  years  it  took  to  construct  the  machinery 
for  that  particular  work;    we  forget  that  all  the 


74  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

energies  of  their  lives  were  coacentrated  upon  the 
production  of  just  those  results,  and  that,  therefore, 
when  the  hour  struck,  they  had  only  to  release  their 
pent-up  energies  and  the  currents  were  bound  to 
flow  along  the  prepared  channels.  It  was  genius 
back  of  it  all,  but  it  was  the  oratorical  habit  that 
made  the  production  of  such  orations  possible. 

And  when  we  hear  of  men,  or  see  them,  that 
cannot  or  will  not  lie,  of  men  who  would  not  by  a 
sign  seem  to  yield  assent  to  an  untruth,  who  found 
it  easier  and  preferable  for  them  to  be  thrown  to 
the  lions,  or  to  be  smeared  with  oil  and  bound  to  a 
stake  in  Nero's  garden  for  a  living  torch,  or  to  have 
their  mouths  filled  with  powder  ready  to  be  touched  at 
a  signal  with  a  flaming  spark,  we  know  that  these  are 
men  who  have  persistently  cut  such  grooves  in  brain 
and  heart  and  muscle  that  for  them  to  do  anything  else 
than  to  die  for  the  truth  would  be  most  difficult  and 
unnatural.  It  has  so  long  been  their  habit  to  speak 
the  true  thing  and  to  do  the  right  thing,  irrespect- 
ive of  consequences,  that  you  need  not  expect  them 
to  do  anything  else  because  an  emperor  or  a  pope  or 
a  party  commands  or  entreats  something  different. 

Every  choice  results  in  a  discharge  of  energy, 
and  every  such  discharge  breaks  channels  or  deep- 
ens those  already  broken  in  brain  and  heart  and 
muscle.  So  the  best  physiologists  and  psychologists 
are  coming  to  speak  as  seriously  of  the  momentous 
importance  of  little  things — of  insignificant  trifles, 
as  we  are  tempted  to  call  them — as  did  the  Puritan 


THE  FORMING   OF  HABITS.  75 

theologians  themselves.  It  is  scientifically  certain, 
they  say,  that  repeated  action  of  any  sort  tends  to 
make  channels  out  of  which  it  is  as  difficult  for 
the  vital  stream  to  lift  itself  as  for  a  river  to  for- 
sake its  well-worn  bed.  Whichever  way  we  turn — 
toward  the  evil  or  the  good — we  see  that  Aristotle 
was  right.  A  man  has  formed  a  good  habit  when 
it  causes  no  self-denial,  and  the  wise  man  will 
enrich  his  life  with  such  habits;  and  when  others 
have  already  been  formed,  he  will  replace  them, 
by  a  process  similar  to  that  which  created  them, 
by  habits  of  the  right  sort.  He  will  follow  Paul's 
advice  to  the  very  letter  :  he  will  fight  fire  with  fire, 
the  evil  with  good.  He  will  no  longer  serve  the 
devil  because  now  he  serves  God. 

There  are  four  habits  whose  desirability  is  so  self- 
evident  that  they  may  be  very  heartily  commended  to 
all  young  people  especially — the  habits  of  industry, 
church-attendance,  Bible- reading  and  prayer.  Paul 
condenses  them  all  in  his  rapid  sentence  :  ^^  Diligent 
in  business,  fervent  in  spirit,  serving  the  Lord." 
The  love  of  work  for  its  own  sake  is  among  the 
rarest  of  all  affections.  It  may  be  doubted  whether 
it  is  ever  innate.  It  is  so  delightful  to  enjoy  one's 
self  that  it  needs  in  almost  every  instance  some 
pressure  from  the  outside  to  give  us  a  more  serious 
view  of  life ;  yet  in  a  world  like  this  it  is  impos- 
sible for  us  to  do  anything  of  real  value  for  our- 
selves or  others  till  in  some  way  we  have  gotten 
rid  of  this  distaste  for  work.     We  are  most  of  us, 


76  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

very  probably,  hard  workers ;  but  if  it  be  from  ne- 
cessity, and  not  from  choice,  we  are  not  industrious : 
we  are  only  obedient  to  the  lash.  The  moment  it 
ceases  to  snap  we  drop  into  a  seat  with  folded  hands 
and  a  sigh  of  relief.  Reconstruct  your  ideas  on  this 
subject;  do  some  honest  thinking  about  it.  See  if 
it  is  possible  for  you  to  imagine  God  sending  a  being 
so  richly  endowed  as  every  human  creature  is  into 
a  world  where  so  much  needs  to  be  done  with  the 
intention  that  such  an  individuality  should  spend 
a  whole  lifetime  here  in  doing  nothing.  Once  be- 
lieve that  God  wants  you  to  be  industrious,  and 
you  will  have  a  motive  for  beginning  to  work,  and 
for  keeping  at  it  till  it  will  become  a  second  nature 
and  no  longer  cause  you  self-denial. 

As  for  church-attendance,  you  do  go  once  in  a 
while  when  you  hear  of  anything  specially  attractive 
or  when  you  feel  particularly  like  it,  or  even  when 
you  don't,  if  you  have  some  one  to  go  with.  You 
are  what  has  been  called  "  a  regular  but  not  inde- 
fatigable church-attendant."  There  are  many  such 
to  keep  you  from  feeling  either  shame  or  loneliness, 
and  possibly  to  keep  you  from  estimating  the  habit 
of  church-attendance  at  its  true  value.  A  man  may, 
it  is  true,  go  to  church  regularly  all  his  life  and  not 
be  much  of  a  man  after  all,  as  a  man  may  eat  three 
meals  regularly  every  day  and  still  be  but  an  in- 
diiferent  specimen  of  physical  development;  but 
in  neither  case  can  you  lay  the  blame  upon  the 
thing  the  man  does.     Had  he  digested  his  food  as 


THE  FORMING   OF  HABITS.  77 

other  men  do,  had  he  taken  the  nourishment  from  the 
church  that  other  men  have  done,  the  results  would 
have  been  different.  Reconstruct  your  ideas  on  this 
subject  also.  See  if  it  is  possible  for  you  to  imagine 
God  instituting  his  Church,  commanding  his  people 
to  become  members  of  it  and  not  to  neglect  the  as- 
sembling of  themselves  together  to  offer  him  wor- 
ship, and  to  receive  instructions  from  him  through 
his  servants,  without  believing  that  here  is  a  God- 
ordained  duty,  where  you  have  been  accustomed  to 
see  a  man-created  privilege  of  which  you  did  not 
frequently  care  to  avail  yourself.  Believe,  as  you 
will  if  you  study  the  question  honestly,  that  God 
wants  you  to  be  a  member  in,  and  a  regular  attend- 
ant of,  his  Church,  and  you  will  have  a  motive  for 
beginning  such  attendance,  and  for  continuing  it  till 
it  too  will  become  a  second  nature  and  no  longer 
cause  you  self-denial. 

You  have  read  the  Bible  through — or,  at  least, 
the  New  Testament.  It  is  a  book  you  would  heartily 
commend.  You  would  be  glad  to  lend  your  copy 
to  a  friend  at  any  time  without  hurrying  him  to  re- 
turn it.  You  know  a  good  many  biblical  conun- 
drums and  something  in  a  general  way  of  the  book 
as  a  whole.  But  you  do  not  read  it  anything  like  as 
regularly  as  you  read  your  new^spaper  or  your  novel. 
Your  superficial  familiarity  with  it  deludes  you  into 
thinking  you  know  it  well  enough  now.  If  a  new 
Epistle  should  be  discovered  written  by  Paul  or  James 
or  Peter,  you  would  read  it  at  once.     So  you  are 


78  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

half  unconsciously  placing  the  book  which  you  really 
believe  to  be  the  word  of  God  on  a  level  with  the 
other  books  that  lie  on  your  table,  which  are  read 
once  or  twice  and  then  opened  no  more.  The  pur- 
pose of  reading  a  revelation  from  God,  we  can  see 
at  a  glance,  must  be  different.  Here  are  our  sailing- 
orders,  the  chart  by  which  we  are  to  steer,  directions 
complete  and  minute  for  our  conduct  by  the  way. 
It  is  impossible  for  us  to  be  too  familiar  with  all  this. 
If  we  knew  it  by  heart,  it  would  be  of  unspeakable 
advantage  to  us.  That  we  ought  to  consult  it  as 
habitually  as  the  ship's  captain  does  the  sun,  and 
for  the  same  reason,  is  indisputable.  Select  your 
own  time — morning  and  evening  will  probably  be 
best — and  read  this  book  as  regularly  as  the  sun 
rises  and  sets.  It  will  not  be  long  before  the  habit 
will  be  formed,  and  to  act  in  accordance  with  it  will 
cause  you  no  self-denial. 

Prayer  is  a  much  more  universal  act  than  the  read- 
ing of  the  Bible.  Men  pray  to  God  who  have  never 
even  heard  of  his  revealed  word  ;  men  pray  to  him 
who  can't  read  it,  and  who  will  not  read  it.  They 
pray  as  children  cry  in  the  night.  They  are  in  fear 
or  pain,  and  the  call  for  help  will  at  least  do  no 
harm.  You  have  all  prayed  many  times;  but  if 
you  should  pray  many  times  more  in  the  same  way, 
still  It  could  not  be  said  of  you — perhaps  you  would 
not  wish  that  It  should — that  you  had  the  habit  of 
prayer.  Neither  would  it  be  quite  true  to  say  that 
they  are  In  the  habit  of  praying  who  are  merely  in 


THE  FORMING   OF  HABITS.  79 

the  habit  of  saying  their  prayers.  Great  criminals 
have  confessed  that  in  a  long  life  of  open  lawlessness 
they  had  never  neglected  once  or  twice  a  day  to  count 
their  beads  and  mutter  a  Paternoster,  or  to  kneel 
and  say  their  prayers  in  the  Protestant  manner,  but 
that  in  all  this  simulation  of  prayer  there  was  any 
real  yearning  for  God  and  godliness  it  is  im2)ossible 
to  believe.  The  habit  we  wish  to  form  is  not  that 
of  saying  certain  words  at  a  certain  time  in  a  certain 
position,  but  it  is  the  habit  of  expressing  gratitude 
to  God  for  the  things  he  gives  us,  and  of  asking  for 
other  things  we  think  we  need ;  it  is  the  habit  of 
going  to  God  confidently  as  in  childhood  you  went 
to  your  father  or  to  some  wise  friend.  Such  a  habit 
is  a  greater  protection  than  are  hosts  of  good  reso- 
lutions or  watchful  friends.  Such  a  habit  will  do 
more  to  ensure  a  triumphant  life  than  any  other  it 
is  possible  to  mention. 

Be  not  overcome  of  evil.  We  shall  be  if  we 
go  out  jauntily  or  carelessly  to  meet  it,  or  if  we  go 
conceitedly  and  contemptuously,  as  Braddock  went 
to  fight  the  Indians.  We  must  go  sobered  by  the 
certainty  of  danger  and  of  defeat  if  we  are  off  our 
guard  or  do  not  make  the  best  use  of  the  material 
we  have  at  hand.  We  must  go  believing  that  there 
is  but  one  way  of  overcoming  evil,  and  determined 
to  use  that  way  so  persistently  that  the  recognition 
of  any  bad  habit  we  may  consciously  or  unconsciously 
have  formed  shall  be  the  signal  for  concentrated  ef- 
fort to  replace  it  with  one  that  is  good. 


vr. 
PERPETUAL  YOUTH. 


VI. 
PERPETUAL  YOUTH. 

"  And  entering  into  the  sepulchre  they  saw  a  young  man  sit- 
ting on  the  right  side  clothed  in  a  long  white  garment." — Mark 
xvi.  5. 

THE  fountain  of  perpetual  youth,  for  the  Chris- 
tian, is  the  grave.  They  who  have  followed 
Christ  on  this  side,  are  to  be  on  the  other  as  the 
angels  of  heaven,  and  this  angelic  form  that  startled 
the  women  who  hurried  to  the  sepulchre  was  straight 
and  lithe  and  young,  in  the  "  bloom  of  a  life  that 
knows  no  decay."  This  "young  man,"  as  Mark 
calls  the  divine  messenger,  may  have  been  one  of 
those  the  patriarch  Jacob  saw  as  he  slept  on  his 
pillow  of  stone  at  Bethel  and  beheld  the  ladder  that 
reached  from  earth  to  heaven,  thronged  with  angels. 
He  may  have  been  one  of  the  two  that  grasped  Lot 
by  the  hand  as  he  lingered  in  Sodom  and  entreated 
him  to  flee  to  the  mountain  lest  he  should  be  con- 
sumed, or  he  may  have  been  a  mortal,  tempted  and 
tried  like  ourselves,  but  who,  conquering  at  last,  as 
we  may,  was  clothed  in  white,  as  all  who  overcome 
shall  be.  An  old  man  perhaps  he  was  when  he 
plunged  into  the  river  of  death,  but  in  that  strange 
bath  his  youth  was  renewed. 

83 


84  BEGINNTNO    LIFE. 

We  draw  back  from  old  age  as  from  the  grave 
itself.  They  seem  to  be  removed  from  each  other 
hut  by  a  single  step.  We  dread  the  undignified  ex- 
posure of  human  weakness  from  which  but  few  of  the 
aged  can  hope  to  escape  with  almost  the  same  inten- 
sity with  which  we  recoil  from  the  pitiless  revelations 
of  the  grave,  but  to  be  unclothed  by  age  and  death  is 
for  the  Christian  to  be  clothed  upon  with  garments 
of  white  and  with  perpetual  youth.  The  youth  we 
liave  here  is  only  a  poor  imitation  of  that  we  may 
have  there.  It  is  like  a  snow  statue  after  one  of 
Michael  Augelo's  designs.  The  slightest  touch  seems 
to  take  something  from  it.  You  turn  your  head 
away  for  a  moment  and  look  back,  and  you  can  see 
the  ravages  that  time  has  already  made  upon  it. 
What  is  so  transitory,  so  evanescent,  so  illusive,  as 
youth  ?  As  long  as  it  is  yours  you  are  unconscious 
of  it;  and  when  you  begin  to  congratulate  yourself 
on  its  possession,  already  your  friends  are  saying, 
^'  How  old  you  look  !'^  and  that  was  your  thought 
about  them,  though  they  were  born  a  year  or  so 
later  than  you.  The  younger  children  in  the  home 
are  always  pushing  the  older  ones  on  into  society  or 
business,  as  one  season  jostles  another  forward. 
Each  class  in  school  or  in  college  is  eager  to  thrust 
the  one  above  it  into  the  university  or  into  the  world. 
Youth  is  gone  almost  ere  one  can  say  it  lightens. 
*'  I  once  was  young,''  says  David  ;  and  we  must  be 
very  quick  indeed  if  we  would  not  be  obliged  to  put 
all  we  say  about  our  youth  in  the  past  tense. 


PERPETUAL   YOUTH.  85 

But  in  that  land  from  which  the  young  man  who 
sat  in  the  sepulchre  came  we  are  to  be  given,  so  he 
seems  silently  to  assure  us,  by  Him  who  has  con- 
quered death  for  himself  and  his  own,  an  aeon  of 
years  to  be  young  in.  We  are  to  feel  through  long 
unending  centuries  an  exulting  sense  of  bodily 
strength.  We  have  just  enough  of  it  here  to  know 
what  it  means.  For  a  few  hours  each  day  we  may 
sniif  the  battle  afar  off,  with  eager  desire  to  be  in 
the  hottest  part  of  it,  and  then  this  imperfect  instru- 
ment of  our  wills  must  be  reinvigorated  and  repaired 
by  food  and  sleep.  As  walking  is  simply  a  perpetual 
falling  and  catching  of  one^s  self  before  the  act  is 
quite  completed,  so  life,  even  of  the  youngest  and 
strongest,  is  a  constant  wearing  out  and  renewal  in 
the  repair-shops  of  the  dining-room  and  the  sleep- 
ing-chamber, till  more  radical  measures  are  required 
and  the  doctor  is  called  in.  What  a  poor  imitation 
all  this  is  of  the  youth  that  awaits  us  just  beyond 
the  grave  !  ^'  They  shall  hunger  no  more,  neither 
thirst  any  more."  There  will  be  no  necessity  to  re- 
pair with  food  the  wasted  strength  of  that  body. 
"  There  is  no  night  there."  They  have  no  need  of 
long  hours  for  rest  and  restoration.  This  body 
sown  in  weakness  is  to  be  raised  in  power.  The 
energy  in  it  is  to  be  so  full  and  abounding  that  re- 
newal would  be  as  superfluous  as  the  renewal  of  the 
life  that  has  gone  pulsing  through  the  universe  with 
undiminished  vigor  from  the  beginning  until  now. 
The  bloom  of  its  life  is  to  know  no  decay. 


86  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

This  perfect  body  is  to  find  itself,  as  these  im- 
perfect bodies  of  ours  never  have  found  themselves 
in  this  unharmonic  world,  in  a  perfect  environment. 
There  will  be  absolutely  no  friction.  And  why 
sliould  not  one  be  perpetually  young  in  such  circum- 
stances ?  The  tasks  appointed  for  this  perfect  instru- 
ment will  be  wholly  congenial.  Have  you  ever 
found  them  altogether  so  here  ?  Has  there  not  al- 
ways been  some  undesirable  element  in  quantity  or  in 
quality.  The  work  you  thought  exactly  what  you 
wanted,  proved  to  be  something  quite  different,  after 
you  had  undertaken  it.  You  deceived  yourself  for 
a  little  while  by  enforced  self-congratulation  that 
this  was  exactly  what  you  wished  for,  but  at  last 
you  were  compelled  to  move  over  to  safer  and  sol- 
ider  ground,  and  to  acknowledge  that  it  was  a  duty 
to  be  performed  in  spite  of  certain  irremediable 
unpleasantnesses.  It  is  not  the  work  itself  that 
wears  us  out  and  ages  us,  but  the  unadaptedness 
of  it,  the  heat  and  irritation  gendered  by  it.  Why 
sliould  not  they  who  have  nothing  to  do  but  to 
carry  out  a  will  with  which  their  own  is  in  perfect 
harmony  keep  their  youth  unbroken?  There  is  no 
inward  recoil  from  the  tasks  assigned  them,  and 
there  is  no  outward  opposition.  Whatever  retards 
and  sets  itself  up  as  a  stumbling-block  in  the  on- 
ward marcli  of  truth  and  righteousness  has  been 
left  on  this  side  the  river.  There  are  no  difficul- 
ties there  to  be  overcome,  no  obstacles  to  be  sur- 
mounted, no  seductions  to  be  resisted,  no  assaults 


PERPETUAL   YOUTH.  87 

to  be  repelled.  How  could  one  grow  old  in  such 
surroundings? 

Theirs  is  the  freshness  of  an  enduring  youth  ; 
the  sparkle  of  the  wine  abides.  Many  a  time 
have  we  stood 

"  Like  stout  Cortez  when  with  eagle  eyes 
He  stared  at  the  Pacitic,  and  all  his  men 
Look'd  at  each  other  with  a  wild  surmise, 
Silent,  upon  a  peak  in  Darieu  ;" 

but  when  we  descended  into  the  plains  beneath  and 
sought  the  gold  whose  glistening  ingots  we  were 
sure  we  saw  from  the  heights  above,  we  found  that 
the  light  had  been  flung  back  from  rocks  of  quartz 
and  shales  of  mica.  The  forests  that  from  the  hill- 
tops looked  like  Elysian  groves  in  whose  cool  glades 
one  might  walk  unwearied  for  ever,  proved  to  be,  as 
we  tried  to  enter  them,  dank  jungles,  impenetrable 
morasses.  Wild  beasts  were  there,  and  serpents, 
and  fevers  more  deadly  still.  It  is  a  land  of  illu- 
sions, this  earth  on  which  we  dwell,  and  every  year 
takes  many  of  them  from  us,  and  with  them  goes 
the  sparkle  and  zest  of  life.  The  time  is  very  short 
in  which  any  mortal,  however  favorably  placed, 
can  be  embarrassed  by  the  wealth  of  pleasures  that 
offer  themselves.  A  few  years  are  quite  sufficient 
to  try  them  all,  and  the  larger  part  of  life  remains 
to  be  wasted  in  vain  advertising  for  some  new  grati- 
fication. Why  should  not  they  be  perpetually  young 
who  are  constantly  finding  every  cup  which  they  lift 


88  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

to  their  lips  far  sweeter  than  their  anticipatioDS? 
How  can  they  grow  old  whose  ever-renewed  expe- 
riences compel  them  to  say,  ^'Satisfied!  satisfied  P' 
even  more  often  than  our  experiences  here  compel  us 
to  say,  "  Vanity  of  vanities  ^'  ?  '^  The  oldest  angels," 
some  one  says,  "are  the  youngest."  Why  not? 
They  are  the  ones  who  have  been  most  often  satis- 
fied. They  are  the  ones  who  can  begin  each  new 
task  with  greatest  zest,  and  they  have  had  the 
largest  experience  of  the  restful  delights  of  the 
service  on  which  they  are  entering. 

Theirs  is  the  trustfulness  of  youth.  It  is  quickly 
lost  here.  It  withers  under  the  cold  winds  that 
sweep  across  this  earth  as  flowers  wither  touched 
by  frost.  There  are  vast  moral  distances  between 
the  child  that  believes  in  everybody  and  the  man 
who  believes  in  nobody,  but  in  time  the  distance 
may  be  small  that  lies  between.  Confidence  is  an 
exotic;  we  find  here  but  little  congenial  soil  for  it. 
The  ground  is  littered  too  deep  with  insincerities 
and  infidelities  and  hypocrisies  for  any  such  growth 
to  take  root  of  itself.  In  the  home  it  is  indigenous, 
in  the  school  it  is  thrifty  and  strong,  but  in  the 
market-place  and  the  forum  it  droops,  and  if  not 
nurtured  with  greatest  care  speedily  dies.  This 
world  offers  an  abundance  of  splendid  soil  for  cyn- 
icism, for  misanthropy,  for  misogamy.  Such  seed 
will  take  root  almost  anywhere  and  grow  like  a 
gourd  in  the  tropics.  We  have  each  of  us  a  thriv- 
ing little  crop  of  our  own  of  these  things.     It  is  a 


PERPETUAL   YOUTH.  89 

crop  easily  sown  and  raised,  but  the  reaping  of  it 
is  a  sad  enough  occupation — so  sad  that  before  it 
is  half  gathered  many  a  man  has  given  up  alto- 
gether in  despair.  Woe  to  you  if  you  are  sowing 
such  a  crop  for  yourself,  if  you  are  so  false  to  your- 
self that  you  cannot  believe  in  the  truth  of  any 
one  else !  Woe  to  you  if  you  are  sowing  such  a 
crop  for  others,  if  through  your  deceit  and  insin- 
cerity they  who  once  believed  are  coming  to  doubt ! 
Woe  to  you  if  you  are  taking  from  any  human  soul 
the  faith  it  once  had  in  purity  and  truth,  in  virtue 
and  goodness,  in  man  and  God  !  It  must  needs  be 
that  offences  come,  but  woe  to  him  by  whom  the 
offence  cometh  ! 

Though  the  lost  faith  of  your  childhood  may 
have  returned  to  you  enriched  and  deepened  since 
you  began  to  believe  in  Jesus  Christ,  though  you 
have  learned  to  know  him  and  are  perfectly  confi- 
dent that  no  word  of  his  can  ever  be  too  implicit- 
ly trusted,  yet  you  are  on  your  guard  still  against 
your  fellow-men.  That  form  of  the  child's  faith 
has  gone  from  you  irrevocably.  It  was  frittered 
aAvay  by  petty  little  deceits,  or  it  was  swept  away 
by  some  great  cruel  treachery.  You  can  never 
again  trust  your  fellow-men  as  you  once  did.  Not, 
it  is  true,  in  a  world  where  even  apostles  could  be- 
tray and  deny  their  Lord,  but  that  trust  shall  come 
back  to  you  in  that  land  from  which  the  young 
man  of  the  sepulchre  came.  Confidence  is  in  the 
air  there  as  doubt  is  in  the  air  here.     A\\  souls,  as 


90  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

well  as  all  garments,  there  are  white.  The  lan- 
guage of  heaven  is  not  a  medium  for  the  conceal- 
ment of  thought,  like  the  language  of  earth.  It  may- 
be that  there  is  no  language  there — that  thoughts  are 
seen  by  the  pure  eyes  of  the  pure  in  heart.  One 
glance  into  souls  as  clear  as  crystal  will  be  all  that 
faith  will  ask  to  leap  at  once  into  vigorous  life. 
Why  should  not  they  have  perpetual  youth  whose 
souls  are  clean,  and  who  see  everywhere  only  clean 
souls  around  them  ? 

These  children  in  the  Father's  house  trust  one 
another  with  open  eyes  now  as  once  in  early  child- 
hood upon  the  earth  they  trusted  one  another  blindly. 
They  trust  the  Father,  too,  with  the  old-time  confi- 
dence of  their  earliest  days  in  earthly  parents,  but 
now  it  is  an  enlightened  and  a  reasonable  confidence. 
It  was  well  enough  for  us  all  as  children  to  believe 
that  our  fathers  knew  everything  and  could  do 
everything.  Any  other  feeling  about  them  would 
have  been  unnatural.  It  was  a  memorable  day  of 
great  unhappiness  when  this  faith  was  shaken  and 
we  began  to  have  doubts,  ending  at  last  in  the  cer- 
tainty that  there  were  many  things  they  did  not 
know  and  could  not  do.  To  be  in  a  home  again 
with  that  old  trust  back  in  the  heart,  and  having  a 
right  to  stay  there  for  ever,  would  be  almost  enough 
in  itself  to  make  us  feel  young  once  more. 

They  trust  him  to  tell  them  all  they  need  to  know. 
There  is  no  hurry.  Eternity  is  around  them.  The 
tree  of  knowledge  is  above  them  ;  its  fruit,  luscious 


PERPETUAL   YOUTH.  91 

and  ripe,  falls  into  their  opened  hands.  They  are 
coming  to  know  as  they  are  known.  Mysteries  are 
being  explained  in  the  clear,  strong  light,  as  the 
weird  shapes  of  the  night  take  on  familiar  forms 
when  the  sun  rises  above  the  hills.  Cycle  upon 
cycle  may  pass  and  some  questions  may  still  be  un- 
answered, but  they  are  not  impatient  as  we  are  in 
this  "troublous  land  of  time  and  dreams."  They 
are  entranced  by  the  ever-changing  panorama  of 
resolved  perplexities  that  passes  before  them.  Why 
should  not  they  grow  young  who  are  coming  to  un- 
derstand all  mysteries? 

They  trust  Him  to  give  them  all  they  ought  to 
have.  Stars  diifer  from  one  another  in  glory.  Some 
who  have  been  last  here  are  first  there,  but  they  see 
the  reason  for  it,  as  we  cannot  for  the  lifting  up  of 
one  and  the  casting  down  of  another  here.  We  are 
never  quite  satisfied  with  what  comes  to  us  on  this 
side  of  the  grave.  If  it  is  not  what  we  asked  for, 
we  wonder  why  ;  and  if  it  is  what  we  asked  for,  we 
wonder  that  we  had  not  asked  for  more.  Not  even 
the  man  who  said  he  had  learned  in  whatsoever 
state  he  was,  therewith  to  be  content,  had  everything 
he  wanted.  He  wislied  to  be  free  from  pain,  and  the 
thorn  yet  hung  in  his  flesh.  He  wished  to  be  free 
from  Roman  fetters  and  prisons,  and  he  was  thrust 
down  into  a  dark  dungeon  under  tlie  pavement.  But 
there  contentment  is  swallowed  up  in  satisfaction. 
"More  than  tliey  could  ask  or  think"  is  flowing 
in  upon   them  along  every  channel.     Tlie  hunger 


92  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

and  the  thirst  of  the  entire  nature  is  disappearing 
for  ever.  Why  should  not  they  be  young  who  are 
harassed  by  no  wants? 

They  trust  him  to  make  them  all  they  wish  to  be. 
From  the  first  entering  upon  that  land  all  ambition 
to  be  chiefest  vanished  they  knew  not  how.  They 
found  some  such  prayer  upon  their  lips  as  that  of  an 
humble  saint  who  cries,  as  he  looks  toward  that  day, 

"  I  have  but  thee,  O  Father !     Let  thy  Spirit 
Be  with  me,  then,  to  comfort  and  uphold. 
No  gate  of  pearl,  no  branch  of  palm,  I  merit, 
Nor  street  of  shining  gold. 

"  Some  humble  door  among  thy  many  mansions, 

Some  sheltering  shade  where  sin  and  striving  cease. 
And  flows  for  ever,  through  heaven's  green  expansions, 
The  river  of  thy  peace. 

"There,  from  the  music  round  about  me  stealing, 
I  fain  would  learn  the  new  and  holy  song, 
And  find,  at  last,  beneath  thy  trees  of  healing. 
That  life  for  which  I  long." 

They  have  begun  to  see  now,  as  they  could  not,  as 
we  cannot,  here,  how  creatures  who  have  been  so 
unlike  their  oAvn  ideals  can  be  transformed  into  his 
perfect  likeness.  As  they  feel  the  work  moving  on 
in  them  they  are  satisfied  to  stand  still  and  see  the 
salvation  of  their  Lord.  Why  should  not  they  be 
young  who  have  already  looked  upon  that  which 
they  are  to  be? 

Theirs,  too,  is  the  joyfulness  of  youth — not  the 


PERPETUAL    YOUTH.  93 

unthinking  and  baseless  joy  of  the  very  young  who 
are  light-hearted  because  they  are  light-headed,  who 
laugh  and  sing  because  they  are  ignorant  of  the 
dangers  around  them,  and  whose  gladness  might  be 
driven  away  by  a  single  sober,  sensible  thought ;  but 
theirs  is  the  joy  of  those  who  have  seen  danger  and 
have  laced  it  down,  who  have  met  enemies  and 
have  conquered  them.  It  is  the  joy  of  those  who 
have  fought  the  good  fight  and  have  finished  their 
course  and  have  kept  the  faith  and  have  received 
the  crown.  Their  work  is  done.  All  that  element 
of  uncertainty  that  kept  them  restlessly  alert  here 
has  for  ever  been  removed.  The  race  is  run,  and  they 
have  won  the  prize ;  the  battle  is  ended,  and  they 
are  victors.  Why  should  youth  not  flow  back  into 
hearts  that  know  such  joy  as  that  ? 

Theirs  is  the  gladness,  too,  of  those  who  have  been 
permitted  to  see  with  Christ  the  travail  of  his  soul 
and  are  satisfied.  They  have  looked,  as  he  has 
lifted  the  curtain  for  them,  down  through  the  ages 
of  time  that  still  remain  to  the  end  of  all  things,  and 
as  they  see  the  glorious  consummation  of  their  Lord's 
work,  as  they  watch  his  enemies  and  those  who  were 
eager  to  sink  his  name  into  bottomless  oblivion 
coming  eagerly  to  him  with  their  gifts  of  gold  and 
frankincense  and  myrrh,  as  they  behold  men  of 
every  color  and  of  every  tongue  bowing  before  him 
with  every  expression  of  grateful  love,  kings  and 
philosophers  side  by  side  with  the  most  lowly  and 
the  most  ignorant,  how  can  they  help  joining  in  the 


94  BEGTNNING  LIFE. 

new  and  holy  song,  "  Worthy  is  the  Lamb  that  was 
slain  to  receive  power,  and  riches,  and  wisdom,  and 
strength,  and  honor,  and  glory,  and  blessing ''  ? 
How  can  they  ever  grow  old  whose  hearts  are 
thrilled  with  the  joy  of  that  song? 

Tlie  oldest  person  here  to-night,  looking  back, 
feels  that  it  was  but  yesterday  and  he  was  young, 
and  the  youngest  person  here  will  be  old  in  a  little 
space  of  time — as  it  were,  a  day.  Soon  the  head 
will  be  whitened  :  "  The  almond  tree  shall  flourish." 
The  eye  will  be  dimmed:  "Those  that  look  out 
of  the  windows  shall  be  darkened.'^  The  hands 
shall  shake  and  the  feet  shall  falter :  "  The  keepers 
of  the  house  shall  tremble,  and  the  grasshopper  shall 
be  a  burden,  and  desire  shall  fail."  And  what  then  ? 
Must  we  be  dragged  on,  caught  in  an  endless  chain, 
to  weakness,  old  age  and  death  ?  Or  may  we  so  use 
our  youth  as  to  have  within  us  the  assurance  that 
it  may  become  perpetual  ?  Are  there  not  limits, 
prophecies,  of  it,  that  like  the  angel  of  the  sepulchre 
give  us  hope,  as  we  look  into  their  faces,  that  we 
shall  for  ever  be  young  ?  Are  there  not  potent 
qualities  that  even  here  seem  to  renew  the  youth  of 
those  who  have  grown  old  ?  At  thirty-four,  James 
Watt,  the  inventor  of  the  steam-engine,  was  an  old 
man.  "  I  greatly  doubt  if  the  silent  mansion  of  the 
dead  is  not  the  happiest  place,"  he  wrote.  At  eighty, 
two  young  men  found  a  day  spent  in  his  company 
among  the  most  amusing  and  instructive,  so  one  of 
them  says,  of  his  whole  life.     What  was  it  that 


PERPETUAL   YOUTH.  95 

changed  the  old-young  man  into  a  youug-ohl  man  ? 
It  was  not  good  health  or  good  luck,  for  his  health 
never  was  very  good  and  he  had  his  full  share  of 
bereavement  and  disappointment,  but  it  was  a  new 
way  of  looking  at  life.  He  had  come  to  see  that  he 
might  give  over  living  for  himself — a  way  of  living 
that  had  almost  burned  up  his  energies  before  his 
days  were  half  finished — and  that  he  might  begin 
to  live  for  God  and  for  the  help  of  humanity.  It 
was  that  new  purpose  that  gave  him  back  the  zest 
and  confidence  and  joy  he  had  wellnigh  lost.  Will 
you  live  for  yourself  and  be  old  in  body  and  soul 
while  you  are  yet  young  in  years?  or  will  you  live 
for  God  and  for  the  good  that  you  can  do,  and  like 
James  Watt  be  young  in  body  and  in  soul  long  after 
the  first  page  of  the  old  family  Bible  has  proved  in 
black  and  white  that  you  are  very  aged  indeed  ? 
Will  you  waste  your  youth  in  a  giddy  round  of 
sensuous  pleasures  till  you  drop  into  a  jejune  and 
hopeless  old  age  with  no  future  to  look  forward 
to  in  time  or  in  eternity  ?  or  will  you  use  your  youth 
so  wisely  as  to  be  young  still  when  old  age  comes, 
and  with  such  vital  germs  within  you  that  you  shall 
rise  out  of  the  grave  clothed  upon,  like  the  messenger 
whom  the  Marys  saw  at  the  empty  sepulchre  on 
that  Easter  morning,  with  white  raiment  and  per- 
petual youth  ? 


vir. 
TEl^PTATION, 


VII, 
TEMPTATION. 

"  Let  no  man  say  wlien  he  is  tempted,  I  am  tempted  of  God  ; 
for  God  cannot  be  tempted  with  evil,  neither  tempteth  he  any 
man :  but  every  man  is  tempted,  when  he  is  drawn  away  of  his 
own  lust  and  enticed." — James  i.  13,  14. 

TEMPTATION  proves  that  we  are  neither  an- 
gels nor  devils.  If  we  were  altogether  good 
or  bad,  the  word  would  have  no  meaning  for  ns. 
We  should  move  straight  forward  then  into  the 
ever-deepening  light  or  darkness,  with  no  allurement 
to  turn  aside.  That  we  can  be  tempted  we  must 
consider  rather  as  hopeful  than  discouraging.  We 
none  of  us  lose  any  supposed  honor  by  the  assur- 
ance that  we  are  not  perfect,  and  the  discouraged 
and  despairing  may  gain  much  by  the  certainty 
that  they  are  still  capable  of  an  exclusively  human 
experience. 

Temptation  itself  is  not  more  natural  to  man  than 
the  offering  of  excuses  for  having  yielded  to  it.  It 
was  exceedingly  easy  for  a  Greek  or  a  Roman  to 
release  himself  from  all  responsibility  of  an  un- 
popular or  shameful  act.  He  had  only  to  say,  if 
caught  stealing,  "  My  god  Mercury  enticed  me ;''  or 
if  discovered  intoxicated,  "  My  god  Bacchus  allured 

99 


100  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

me  to  drink ;"  or  if  found  beating  out  bis  enemy's 
life,  "  My  god  Mars  made  me  do  it ;''  but  a  Chris- 
tian— one  of  the  apostles  of  Jesus  Christ — pricks 
with  his  pen  this  consoling  theory  of  a  false  theol- 
ogy. "  Don't  deceive  yourself  in  that  way/'  James 
says.  Don't  flatter  yourself  that  a  god  had  any 
part  in  the  meanness  of  which  you  are  accused. 
The  only  god  there  is  in  this  universe  is  good. 
"Let  no  man  say" — be  he  Greek,  Roman  or  Hebrew 
— "  when  he  is  tempted,  I  am  tempted  of  God,  for 
God  cannot  be  tempted  with  evil,  neither  tempteth 
he  any  man :  but  every  man  is  tempted,  when  he  is 
drawn  away  of  his  own  lust  and  enticed.'^ 

When  you  do  wrong,  there  is  one  person  to  blame 
for  it,  and  that  is  the  one  who  does  the  wrong. 
It  is  not  denied  that  other  people  or  other  things 
may  have  been  the  occasion  of  it,  but  these  out- 
ward enticements,  however  attractive,  would  have 
been  impotent  had  not  your  consent  been  given. 
We  say  we  are  tempted  by  our  senses.  We  try — 
half  unconsciously,  perhaps — to  make  the  eye  or  the 
ear  do  duty  as  scapegoat,  as  the  Greeks  once  made 
scapegoats  of  their  gods.  But  the  eye  and  the  ear 
only  carry  impressions  to  the  soul,  and  they  are 
no  more  to  blame  for  what  follows  the  deliv- 
ery of  their  message  than  is  the  messenger-boy 
for  what  you  may  do  after  you  read  the  telegram 
he  hands  you.  Every  man  is  tempted — not  when 
he  is  drawn  away  of  his  eyes  or  of  his  ears,  but 
of  his  lusts.      Two  pair  of  eyes  look  at  the  same 


TEMPTATION.  101 

object ;  and  if  you  could  photograph  the  impressions 
made  on  those  four  optic  nerves,  the  pictures  mi^^ht 
be  ahiiost  identical,  but  the  results  upon  those  two 
lives  were  very  different.  One  of  these  pairs  of  eyes 
belonged  to  a  drover  just  in  from  the  Far  West, 
and  the  other  belonged  to  his  daughter ;  and  the 
object  they  saw  was  a  jewel  in  a  shop-window. 
They  both  saw  it,  but  the  cattleman's  heart  made 
no  response — he  wouldn't  give  the  poorest  colt  on 
his  farm  for  it — but  that  girl  there  by  his  side  has 
had  some  education.  She  has  read  about  courts 
and  about  crown-jewels.  She  knows  that  that 
sparkling  thing  is  a  diamond,  like  those  worn 
by  empresses.  It  is  a  small  one,  to  be  sure,  that 
no  empress  of  good  standing  would  want,  but  this 
little  lady  thinks  she  never  saw  anything  so  beau- 
tiful ;  her  heart  is  in  her  throat  as  she  looks  at  it. 
She  is  really  tempted  to  break  the  tenth  com- 
mandment in  a  way  she  could  not  even  explain  to 
her  father.  They  go  down  the  street,  and  hear  on 
the  next  corner  sounds  coming  out  intermittently  as 
a  door  swings  to  and  fro — snatches  of  songs,  bois- 
terous laughter  and  the  clicking  of  glasses.  They 
both  hear  them.  The  father  stops  as  if  fascinated, 
but  the  daughter  clutches  his  hand  and  tries  to 
drag  him  by.  It  was  not  the  jewel  that  tempted 
the  daughter  nor  the  dram-shop  the  father :  it  was 
something  within  them  that  leaped  up  as  traitors 
will  when  the  signal  is  given  and  the  time  seems 
to  have  come  to  betray  the  fortress. 


102  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

This  is  why  it  is  that,  while  we  all  live  in  the 
same  world  and  see,  many  of  us,  the  same  things, 
no  two  human  beings  ever  have  exactly  the  same 
temptations.  There  is  nothing  in  any  of  our  senses, 
there  is  nothing  in  the  surroundings  of  any  of  us, 
business,  professional,  social,  that  makes  sin  neces- 
sary. When  we  are  drawn  away,  it  is  by  our  own 
lusts  to  which  we  have  given  assent.  That  some 
sights  and  sounds  and  places  are  more  dangerous 
than  others  is  altogether  unquestionable.  What 
these  are  for  us  is  one  of  the  things  that  we  ought 
all  to  know  about  ourselves.  Perhaps  there  is  as 
little  common  sense  used  in  resisting  temptation  as 
in  any  other  phase  of  human  life  whatsoever.  We 
learn,  for  the  most  part  after  a  few  trials,  that  we 
are  better  off  physically  if  we  avoid  some  things 
and  secure  others.  If  we  find  we  can't  get  along 
well  without  eight  hours'  sleep,  we  make  an  effort 
to  sleep  eight  hours ;  if  we  find  that  there  are  dain- 
ties we  cannot  eat  without  resulting  discomfort,  we 
refuse  them,  however  delicious  they  may  be  to  the 
taste ;  but  we  seem  to  lose  our  heads  when  we  get 
on  to  higher  ground  where  the  questions  to  be  de- 
cided have  to  do  more  directly  with  our  moral  than 
with  our  physical  well-being.  The  process  up  to  a 
certain  point  is  the  same  as  that  with  which  we  are 
familiar.  There  is  the  effort  to  assimilate  some  par- 
ticularly delicious  indulgence,  repeated  more  than 
once,  with  a  never-failing  moral  and  spiritual  dis- 
comfort resulting,  but  there  the  resemblance  ceases. 


TEMPTATION.  103 

We  do  not  avoid  these  things  as  we  do  for  the  most 
part  those  that  express  tlieniselves  in  physical  terms. 
We  are  as  stupid  about  it  as  if  we  had  no  moral 
memories  whatever.  A  man  knows  that  if  he 
exposes  himself  at  certain  times  and  in  certain 
atmospheric  conditions  his  system  will  be  unable 
to  resist,  and  he  knows  with  the  same  degree  of 
certainty  that  if  he  exposes  himself  to  unfavorable 
moral  and  spiritual  conditions  he  will  undoubtedly 
succumb ;  but  he  does  it,  not  only  once  or  twice : 
he  keeps  on  doing  it.  He  deliberately  embarks  in 
a  business  that  from  the  very  nature  of  it  repro- 
duces constantly  these  unfortunate  conditions.  He 
associates  himself  with  men  in  whose  society  he 
finds  these  conditions  are  never  absent.  He  reads 
books  in  every  line  of  which  lurks  moral  malaria. 
He  chooses  his  home  in  a  place  that  makes  escape 
doubly  difficult,  and  after  he  has  done  everything 
that  one  could  think  of  to  dig  pitfolls  for  him- 
self he  tumbles  into  them,  and  says,  "  I  am  not 
to  blame.  No  one  could  have  escaped  under  these 
circumstances."  Yet  these  men  in  their  self-con- 
structed pitfalls  serve  at  least  one  purpose,  if  no 
other — that  of  a  warning  to  the  young  not  to  throw 
overboard  common  sense  when  they  know  that  just 
ahead  are  the  rocks  where  sirens  sit  and  sing.  Let 
them  counsel  you  as  the  half-repentant  Circe,  daugh- 
ter of  the  Sun,  counseled  Ulysses  so  to  prepare  his 
ship  by  filling  the  ears  of  the  sailors  with  wax  and 
havino;  himself  bound  to  the  mast  that  it  might  not 


104  BEGrNNING  LIFE. 

be  easy — nay,  might  be  impossible — for  them  to 
yield  to  the  seductive  soDg.  There  are  many  en- 
chanted islands  just  ahead.  To  sail  on  thought- 
lessly till  the  music  of  those  fiscinating  songs  fills 
the  air  will  be  fatal.  Make  preparation  for  such 
moments.  See  to  it  that  the  ears  and  the  hands 
are  properly  cared  for. 

But  Orpheus  took  even  a  better  way  than  that 
of  Ulysses.  When  he  passed  the  sauie  island  of 
the  sirens,  he  left  his  own  hands  unbound  and  the 
ears  of  his  sailors  unstopped,  but  he  made  sweeter 
music  on  his  harp  than  that  of  the  sirens,  and  he 
and  all  his  men  could  smile  at  the  vain  efforts  of 
their  would-be  destroyers.  This  is  "the  expulsive 
power,"  as  Chalmers  calls  it,  "of  a  new  affection." 
This  is  the  common-sense  and  Christian  way  of 
resisting  temptation.  Let  your  tempted  soul  hear 
sweeter  music  than  the  sirens  make  if  you  would 
keep  contentedly  on  your  course.  The  majority 
of  those  who  give  themselves  over  to  gross,  sensu- 
ous lives  do  it  as  much  because  they  know  of  noth- 
ing else  that  would  be  interesting  to  do  as  for  any 
other  reason.  Could  they  have  become  engaged  in 
any  form  of  healthful  activity,  the  power  of  the 
temptation  over  them  would  have  been  immeasu- 
rably diminished. 

The  man  who  is  hard  at  work,  especially  if  it 
be  in  the  kind  of  work  he  likes,  will  not  often 
hear  the  song  of  the  sirens ;  and  if  he  hears  it,  he 
will  be  too  absorbed   to  give  his  attention  to  it. 


TEMPTATION.  105 

All  young  men  and  women  ought  to  be  regu- 
larly employed.  If  they  do  not  need  to  work  to 
keep  soul  and  body  together,  they  do  need  it  to 
keep  the  soul  clean  and  the  body  pure.  If  you 
are  compelled  to  labor  to  earn  a  living,  do  not  look 
upon  it  as  a  curse  :  God  may  have  seen  that  it  was 
the  only  way  to  save  you  from  the  curse  of  sin.  If 
you  have  nothing  to  do,  look  for  work  at  once ; 
there  is  an  abundance  of  it  to  be  found  if  you  do 
not  care  for  pecuniary  remuneration.  There  is  work 
to  be  done  in  getting  work  for  those  who  cannot 
live  without  it.  There  is  work  to  be  done  for  those 
who  are  suffering  because  they  are  too  old  or  too 
young  or  too  weak  to  work.  There  is  work  to 
be  done  in  visiting  the  sick  and  those  who  are  in 
prison — work  in  teaching  the  ignorant  and  in  re- 
forming the  vicious,  in  clothing  the  naked  and  feed- 
ing the  hungry,  in  giving  comfort  to  the  sorrowing 
and  courage  to  the  hopeless.  Don't  say,  "  That 
sort  of  work  is  for  ministers  and  priests  and  sisters 
of  charity. ^^  So  it  is,  but  not  for  them  exclusively. 
So  far  as  we  know,  there  was  not  a  single  represen- 
tative of  any  of  these  classes  in  that  company  to 
W'hom  Christ  said,  **  I  was  an  hungered,  and  ye 
gave  me  no  meat ;  I  was  thirsty,  and  ye  gave  me 
no  drink ;  I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took  me  not 
in ;  naked,  and  ye  clothed  me  not ;  sick  and  in 
prison,  and  ye  visited  me  not." 

Learn  as  well  to  make  a  proper  use  of  the  pure, 
ennobling  pleasures  of  life.     Let  their  sweet  songs 


106  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

drown  the  seductive  songs  of  the  sirens.  Train 
yourself  to  admire  and  enjoy  a  beautiful  sunset 
or  a  still  more  beautiful  sunrise.  Let  the  eye  be 
refined  in  its  tastes  till  a  field  of  ripening  grain,  a 
long  slope  of  green  grass,  a  river  winding  through 
a  valley,  a  blossoming  orchard,  a  snow-clad  moun- 
tain, a  stretch  of  blue  sea,  shall  give  a  keener  sense 
of  enjoyment  than  the  garish  splendors  of  halls 
devoted  to  sensuous  delights.  Learn  to  admire 
and  enjoy  the  best  there  is  in  art.  The  world's 
masterpieces  for  the  most  part  are  on  the  other  side 
of  the  sea,  but  these  are  by  no  means  necessary 
for  the  development  of  the  artistic  sense.  There 
are  galleries  of  fairly  good  pictures  open  to  us  all 
here  in  our  own  city.  An  hour  spent  in  one  of 
them  would  be  of  more  advantage  to  you  than 
many  hours  spent  in  Avatching  the  changing  scenes, 
too  often  contaminating,  of  the  theatre  or  the  opera- 
house.  There  is  real  art  now  in  the  illustrations 
of  our  best  magazines,  brought  by  free  libraries 
within  every  one's  reach.  Learn  to  see  and  to  feel 
the  beauty  there  is  in  the  simplest  scenes  well  drawn 
or  etched,  and  you  have  a  source  of  pleasure  that 
will  neither  vitiate  nor  satiate. 

Music  may  be  even  more  helpful  than  pictures. 
It  is  cheaper.  There  is  more  variety  and  greater 
intensity  in  the  pleasure  it  gives.  If  we  are  at  all 
musical,  we  can  carry  our  treasures  with  us  every- 
where, and  can  bring  them  out  by  night  as  well  as 
by  day  for  the  delectation  of  our  friends  and  for 


TEMPTATION.  107 

our  own  gratification.  To  be  able  to  play  on  an 
instrument,  or  to  use  that  most  noble  of  all  instru- 
ments the  human  voice,  is  to  be  possessed  of  an 
unfailing  source  of  the  purest  pleasure.  Though 
there  are  comparatively  few  who  can  ever  hope 
to  play  or  to  sing  well  enough  to  give  gratification 
to  really  critical  people,  yet  the  world  does  not 
exist  altogether  for  the  benefit  of  really  critical 
people;  and  if  you  can  learn  to  play  or  sing  or 
whistle  a  tune,  you  will  have  it  in  your  power  at 
any  time  to  overwhelm  the  siren's  song  with  safer 
and  nobler  melodies,  even  if  they  are  not  very  artis- 
tically rendered. 

Literature  offers  quite  as  real  a  pleasure  to  even 
a  larger  number  of  people.  Most  musical  amateurs 
spend  more  hours  a  day  with  their  books  than  with 
their  instruments  or  songs.  Johnson  thought  the 
most  miserable  man  in  all  the  world  ''  is  he  who 
cannot  read  on  a  rainy  day."  He  might  have 
enlarged  the  rainy  day  a  little  and  made  it  include 
all  odd  and  unoccupied  moments.  Probably  the  ma- 
jority of  us  have  received  more  pleasure  from  books 
than  from  all  other  sources  combined.  Blessed  are 
the  young  men  and  maidens  who  ask  no  keener 
delights  than  those  they  know  are  always  awaiting 
them  between  the  covei's  of  a  good  book.  If  you 
do  not  care  now  for  reading,  set  yourself  as  deter- 
minedly to  acquire  this  taste  as  you  would  if  you 
knew  that  on  the  last  page  of  every  worthy  book 
you  should  read  you  would  be  certain  of  finding  a 


108  BEGINNING  LIFE, 

legal -tender  bill  of  a  large  sum,  so  bewitched  by 
book-loving  fairies  as  not  to  be  plucked  by  any 
possibility  till  every  page  is  read. 

The  actual  rewards  to  those  who  read  the  whole  of  a 
good  book  are  greater  than  any  within  the  power  of 
fairies  to  distribute.  Not  the  least  of  these  will  be  the 
independence  you  will  thus  achieve.  Instead  of  being 
a  hanger-on  of  every  friend  or  acquaintance  who 
can  amuse  you  and  save  you  for  an  hour  or  so  from 
yourself,  you  will  be  absohitely  free  to  seek  society 
of  any  sort  or  to  avoid  it,  as  may  seem  desirable. 
You  know  you  have  better  than  the  best  to  be  found 
in  modern  drawing-rooms  in  your  own  little  library, 
though  there  may  be  only  a  dozen  books  upon  the 
shelf.  Outranking  even  this  priceless  benefit  Mall 
be  the  moral  and  spiritual  gains  you  will  have  made. 
At  the  first  notes  of  the  siren's  song  you  can  fill  the 
air  with  the  sweetest  music  of  the  world's  purest  and 
most  inspiring  poets ;  you  can  enchain  the  ear  with 
the  eloquence  of  the  grandest  orators  that  have  ever 
lived ;  you  can  entrance  the  eye  with  pageants  that 
move  across  the  page  more  brilliant  and  splendid 
than  have  ever  marched  across  any  Pield  of  the 
Cloth  of  Gold. 

Thrice  blessed  are  the  young  men  and  maidens  to 
whom  the  Bible  is  the  most  interesting  of  books. 
An  audience  of  colored  people  can  be  gathered  any- 
where in  the  South,  it  is  said,  by  an  announcement 
that  a  number  of  chapters  will  be  read  from  either 
the  Old  Testament  or  the  New.     They  delight  in 


TEMPTATION.  109 

the  long  musical  roll  of  the  Psalms,  in  the  wide 
wondrous  visions  of  the  prophets,  in  the  exquisite 
parables  of  Christ  and  in  the  cogent  Epistles  of  Paul. 
Many  of  the  greatest  scholars  here  in  the  North  and 
in  England  and  Germany  are  of  the  same  mind  as 
the  ignorant  freedmen.  To  them,  as  to  Sir  Walter, 
this  is  "  the  Book.'^  There  is  no  other  comparable  to 
it.  They  would  choose  it  unhesitatingly  if  they  knew 
they  were  about  to  be  cast  away  upon  a  lonely  island, 
and  could  have  but  one  book.  A  vast  amount  of 
intellectual  error,  often  of  a  painful,  and  sometimes 
of  a  very  dangerous,  sort  is  altogether  avoidable  for 
those  who  are  willing  to  be  admonished  by  this  book, 
and  there  is  moral  and  spiritual  life  and  health  in  it 
for  the  whole  race.  Blessed  are  they  who  when 
they  are  tempted  are  able  at  once  to  grasp  the  sword 
of  the  Spirit,  which  is  some  word  of  God,  as  Christ 
himself  did. 

As  Christ  himself  did  !  It  is  only  in  the  com- 
panionship of  this  Christ  who  met  the  tempter  and 
conquered  him  for  us  that  we  can  be  absolutely 
secure  against  temptation.  All  the  contentment  we 
can  find  in  our  work,  all  the  pleasure  and  inspira- 
tion we  can  get  out  of  nature  and  art  and  music  and 
literature,  all  the  moral  and  spiritual  strength  that 
leap  from  this  word  as  waters  Jeap  from  a  spring, 
will  be  of  incalculable  advantage  in  lessening  the 
frequency  and  power  of  temptation  ;  but  when  it 
comes  upon  us  and  the  storm  breaks,  then  we  must 
fly  to  this  Lover  of  our  souls.     Our  safety  depends 


110  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

very  largely  in  our  reliance  upon  his  presence  and 
help,  and  that  reliance  will  be  aifected  in  no  small 
degree  by  our  ability  to  realize  his  constant  nearness. 
There  is  a  great  difference  in  temperaments  as  to 
this  power  of  seeing  the  invisible.  There  are  some, 
like  the  old  Greek  philosopher,  who  can  see  good- 
ness incarnated,  and  who  are  entranced  with  the 
form  of  beauty  outlined  before  them  with  a  distinct- 
ness almost  like  that  of  a  material  presence ;  there 
are  Christians  who  seem  to  live  in  the  conscious  pres- 
ence of  their  Lord  as  really  as  did  they  who  jour- 
neyed with  him  across  "those  sacred  fields;"  but 
there  are  others  to  whom  all  this  is  largely  incom- 
prehensible. They  believe  in  Christ  as  they  do  in 
goodness,  but  they  have  never  seen  either.  They 
lose  very  much,  much  more  perhaps  tlian  there  is 
any  need  of  their  losing.  If  they  would  make  a 
rational  use  of  these  four  inspired  pictures  of  the 
Christ,  he  would  no  longer  be  for  them  a  Christ  en- 
tombed in  a  garden  or  a  Christ  enthroned  in  heaven: 
he  would  be  the  Christ  of  his  own  promise,  "  with 
us  always  even  unto  the  end,"  and  to  whom  we  can 
cry  when  we  feel  ourselves  sinking,  as  Peter  did, 
and  there  is  time  only  for  a  cry,  with  perfect  confi- 
dence that  he  will  hear  and  answer  our  ao-onizins: 
appeal  as  quickly  as  he  did  Peter's. 

The  old  mythology  has  passed  away  altogether. 
Men  long  ago  ceased  to  believe  in  gods,  impure  them- 
selves and  tempting  mortals  to  vice.  "  God  is  God  : 
there  is  none  other,"  is  the  message  that  even  the 


TEMPTATION.  Ill 

Mohammedan  shouts  in  the  ears  of  Asiatic  and  Afri- 
can savages.  He  will  not  entice  to  sin  ;  he  died  to 
save  the  world  from  it.  He  lives  for  the  same  pur- 
pose. He  does  not  see  fit  to  remove  us  altogether 
from  the  sphere  of  temptation,  but  that  need  not 
disquiet  us  :  "he  will  not  suffer  us  to  be  tempted  above 
that  we  are  able,  but  will  with  the  temptation  also 
make  a  way  to  escape.^'  Never  permit  yourself  to 
believe  or  to  be  persuaded  that  temptation,  in  what- 
ever form  it  comes,  is  irresistible.  It  is  for  all  of 
us  if  we  stand  alone,  but  for  none  of  us  who  have 
"  the  right  man  on  our  side,  the  man  of  God's  own 
choosing." 


VIII. 

MAKING  A  HOp. 


VIII. 

MAKING  A  HOME. 

"  Through  wisdom  is  an  house  builded  ;  and  by  understanding 
it  is  established," — Prov.  xxiv.  3. 

THE  idea  of  the  family  is  one  of  the  ideas  that 
are  as  widespread  as  is  the  human  race.  In- 
stinct reproduces  something  like  it  even  among  birds 
and  animals,  but  the  home  is  altogether  a  human 
idea  and  confined  to  man  in  his  civilized  state. 
There  are  families  in  Asia  and  in  Africa,  and  perhaps 
in  Europe  and  in  America,  whose  dwelling-places  are 
no  more  real  homes  than  are  the  lairs  in  which  wild 
beasts  live.  There  are  sociologists  who  believe  that 
the  home  is  found  only  in  civilization,  and  in  civili- 
zation north  of  a  certain  latitude.  They  make  it 
coterminous  with  the  frost-line  :  ^'  Where  ice  never 
forms,  homes  are  not  made.''  Where  the  climate  is 
so  mild  all  the  year  round  that  every  one  lives  out 
of  doors,  coming  into  the  house  only  to  sleep,  the 
idea  of  the  home  is  a  dormitory.  In  the  north, 
where  the  nights  are  long  and  the  winters  severe, 
the  family  is  driven  in  upon  itself,  and  the  home 
crystallizes  within  as  silently  as  the  ice  without. 
But  it  does  not  follow  that  every  family  living 

115 


116  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

under  a  weatherproof  roof  north  of  the  frost-line  is 
in  a  home.  Strangely  enough,  none  of  the  European 
peoples,  from  the  far  south  to  the  land  of  almost 
perpetual  snow,  use  the  word  '^  home  "  at  all ;  it  is 
not  in  their  languages.  They  get  no  nearer  to  it 
than  ''  house."  "  To  the  house,"  "  in  the  house," 
are  the  idioms  they  use  for  ''  going  home  "  and  '^  at 
home."  In  English  the  word  is  one  of  the  most 
common  and  one  of  the  most  sacred  ;  it  is  next  to  the 
word  ''heaven"  itself.  In  this  land  of  homes  Phila- 
delphia bears  the  proud  distinction  of  being  the  ''city 
of  homes."  One  other  city  has  more  families,  but 
has  far  fewer  homes.  Communists  and  socialists 
grind  their  teeth  at  the  very  mention  of  Philadel- 
phia ;  they  consider  it  an  almost  barren  soil  for  their 
theories.  The  material  out  of  which  a  destructive  and 
murderous  mob  may  be  formed  does  not  come  from 
the  home.  But  cities,  like  men,  often  end  by  fail- 
ing at  their  supposed  strongest  point.  That — at 
least,  they  think — can  take  care  of  itself.  It  is  left 
unguarded,  and  tliere  the  enemy  enters.  As  soon 
as  the  making  of  homes  and  the  fostering  of  home- 
life  come  to  be  questions  in  which  it  is  supposed  that 
Philadelphians  need  take  no  interest,  our  glory  will 
at  once  begin  to  grow  dim.  Your  parents  had  to 
answer  for  themselves  questions  concerning  home- 
making,  and  you  cannot  adopt  their  decision  :  you 
must  make  a  home  for  yourself. 

"Wisdom,"  Solomon  says,  "builds  the  house," 
the  term  in  which  he  would  probably  include  the 


MAKING  A  HOME.  117 

home-idea  as  well  as  that  of  the  family-name,  "  and 
understanding  solidifies  it/^  Our  American  Solomons 
for  the  most  part  believe  that  the  sentence  should  be 
amended  to  read,  "  By  money  is  a  house  builded,  and 
by  money  is  it  established/^  That  money  can  build 
timbers  and  bricks  and  mortar  and  stone  into 
something  that  answers  to  the  term  ^'  house  '^  is  un- 
debatable.  There  are  almost  as  many  architects  as 
lawyers  on  Chestnut  and  Walnut  streets,  and  they 
will  promise  for  a  certain  sum  to  draw  a  plan  and 
make  all  contracts  with  the  builders,  and  have  you 
a  house  put  up  and  furnished,  to  the  very  dishes  on 
the  table  if  you  wish,  within  a  limited  time.  By 
adding  half  as  much  again  time  and  money  to  their 
estimates  you  may  be  reasonably  confident  that  the 
promise  will  be  fulfilled.  Money  will  build  you  a 
house,  it  will  give  you  an  "  establishment,^'  but  it 
cannot  assure  you  a  home.  The  French  call  these 
massive  structures  that  money  builds  "  hotels.^' 
Perhaps  it  would  not  be  unfair  to  press  a  partial 
confession  out  of  the  word  that  the  life  within  those 
walls  is  not  unlike  that  of  a  hotel.  The  inmates 
may  have  as  few  common  interests  as  have  the  so- 
called  "guests"  of  one  of  our  great  caravansaries. 
But  by  diminishing  the  size  you  do  not  necessarily 
increase  the  home-feeling.  There  may  be  second- 
and  third-class,  as  well  as  first-class,  hotels.  Wher- 
ever money  is  the  only  reliance,  there  can  be  noth- 
ing but  a  hotel  or  a  boarding-house.  To  have  a 
home  there  must  be  unity  of  feeling,  community 


118  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

of  interests,  and  money  is  notoriously  unable  to  pro- 
duce either. 

If  we  cannot  amend  this  sentence  of  Solomon's 
by  replacing  the  word  "  wisdom  ''  by  "  money," 
might  we  not,  a  large  number  of  young  people  are 
always  asking,  replace  it  by  "love''?  They  go 
forth  hand  in  hand,  these  trusting  couples,  relying 
on  love  to  lead  them  to  some  vine-clad  cottage  in 
which  they  can  build  a  home.  Alas  that  Love, 
proverbially  blind,  should  lead  so  many  to  the  poor- 
house  or  the  divorce  courts  !  Love  was  never  yet 
caught  handling  brooms  and  dustcloths  and  frying- 
pans,  or  filling  the  larder  with  things  to  eat  and  the 
closets  with  things  to  wear.  While  neither  cleanli- 
ness nor  plenty  makes  a  home,  it  is  next  to  impos- 
sible to  make  a  home  without  both.  Love  must 
have  at  least  one  part  wisdom  added  to  it  before  it 
can  be  effective  as  a  home-maker,  and  then  it  be- 
comes so  permeated  all  through  with  wisdom  that 
it  is  almost  certain  to  succeed. 

Love  of  that  sort  has  no  false  pride :  it  is  willing 
to  begin  at  the  bottom.  It  doesn't  care  how  high 
society  may  lift  its  supercilious  eyebrows :  it  is  ready 
for  any  honest  toil  that  may  offer.  It  is  not  fright- 
ened at  burdens  that  might  appal  one  brave  heart, 
for  in  this  house  there  are  two  brave  hearts  that 
can  smile  at  a  little  load  like  that.  '^  Those  were 
our  happiest  days,"  say  some  of  those  liome-builders 
now  grown  old  and  rich,  "  when  we  began  the  mak- 
ing of  our  home.     When  there  was  plenty  of  hard 


MAKING  A  HOME.  119 

work,  with  usually  enough  to  eat,  what  mattered  it  if 
now  aud  then  we  sat  down  to  rather  a  meagre  or  an 
ill-cooked  meal?^^  Wisdom  had  come  a  little  short 
in  providing  and  preparing,  but  it  had  done  its  best; 
and  love  could  aiford  to  overlook  any  deficiency. 

In  such  a  home,  where  there  are  wise  as  well  as 
tender  eyes  in  each  head,  the  importance  of  other 
things  besides  the  table  will  be  recognized.  There 
is  an  indescribable  atmosphere  that  is  quite  as  essen- 
tial to  the  home  as  good  bread  and  enough  of  it. 
What  some  of  the  qualities  are  that  tend  to  create 
this  atmosphere,  and  without  which  it  cannot  exist, 
is  an  open  secret.  Courtesy  is  one  of  these.  Those 
who  have  entered  into  an  engagement  to  make  a 
home  together,  or  who  have  just  begun  the  work, 
are  ordinarily  so  courteous  to  each  other  as  at  once 
to  betray  themselves.  This  ought  to  bring  a  bhish, 
not  to  the  faces  of  these  young  innocents,  but  to 
the  colorless,  wrinkled  cheeks  of  those  who  smile. 
It  is  the  most  terrible  confession  of  their  own  defi- 
ciency in  that  quality  of  which  neither  the  betrothed 
nor  the  newly-wedded  ever  has  too  much.  These 
old  cynics  were  once  themselves  as  courteous  as  the 
young  bride  and  groom  that  have  aroused  their  merri- 
ment, but  their  courtesy  waned  with  the  moon,  to  wax, 
alas !  no  more.  The  ears  that  were  accustomed  to  the 
gentle  speech  of  the  bygone  halcyon  days  would  not 
recognize  the  harsh  voice  of  the  present  had  they  not 
gradually  become  accustomed  to  Its  increasing  grtiff- 
ness  of  tone.     Where  is  the  table  across  which  those 


120  BEGIN^UNO  LIFE. 

who  bave  celebrated  their  silver,  or  even  their  crys- 
tal or  tin,  wedding  always  speak  as  they  ought? 
"  They  are  more  natural  now/'  do  you  say  ?  Then 
to  be  more  natural  for  most  people  means  to  be  more 
brutal.  The  fine  atmosphere  of  the  home  cannot 
be  produced  by  words,  however  tender,  but  it  can 
easily  be  destroyed  by  rude,  uncourteous  speech. 

Though tfulness  is  another  quality  as  essential 
as  oxygen  to  the  atmosphere  of  the  home.  The 
occupants  of  a  house  or  a  hotel  may  be  courteously 
indifferent  to  one  another,  but  in  the  home  this  is  im- 
possible ;  such  indifference  immediately  turns  what 
was  a  home  into  a  house  or  hotel.  The  home  is  the 
only  double-headed  entity  of  which  we  have  any 
knowledge  that  is  not  a  monster,  but  there  is  no  mon- 
ster comparable  to  a  home  in  which  these  two  heads 
are  not  sympathetic.  The  duties  of  the  husband  and 
those  of  the  wife  are  so  different  that  it  will  require 
some  effort  on  the  part  of  both  to  give  to  each  their 
proper  emphasis  and  importance.  It  is  easy  for 
each  to  accuse  the  other  of  exaggeration,  absolute 
or  relative.  The  wife  thinks  the  husband  over- 
particular about  his  shop  or  office  or  store,  and  he 
thinks  she  underestimates  somewhat  the  obliga- 
tions of  his  business  or  professional  life  and  over- 
estimates the  home-claims  that  bear  most  directly 
upon  her.  Both  are  very  likely  right,  and  both  are 
very  likely  wrong.  There  is  a  mutual  failure  in 
though  tfulness.  In  love  they  prefer  each  other  to 
all  the  world,  but  ^'in  honor  preferring  one  another '^ 


MAKING  A  HOME.  121 

has  quite  slipped  out  of  their  minds.  So  with  their 
varied  tastes  as  well  as  their  duties.  No  two  people 
ever  did  have  exactly  the  same  likes  and  dislikes, 
though  for  a  time  they  may  honestly  have  tried  to 
make  themselves  and  each  other  think  they  had. 
Gradually  in  every  instance  where  it  was  not  sud- 
denly these  diiFerences  make  themselves  felt.  The 
husband  and  the  wife  find  that  aesthetically  and 
intellectually  and  gastrouomically  they  are  not 
one,  but  two.  If  each  is  self-assertive  and  confi- 
dent that  the  other  ought  to  yield  and  replace 
present  tastes  with  the  superior  appetencies  of 
the  other,  the  fine  atmosphere  of  that  home  is 
in  danger  of  losing  an  essential  quality.  A  little 
thoughtfulness  on  the  part  of  each  would  make 
it  self-evident  to  both  that  these  differences  must 
exist,  that  they  are  essential  if  the  husband  and 
the  wife  are  to  be  the  complement  of  each  other, 
and  that  the  life  of  each  will  not  lose  in  any 
degree,  but  will  gain  markedly,  by  a  thoughtful 
consideration  of  these  differences. 

They  have  different  weaknesses,  too,  as  well  as 
tastes.  One  is  strong  just  where  the  other  is  not, 
and  it  seems  rather  aggravating  to  both  that  it 
should  be  so.  Mistakes  that  we  do  not  make  our- 
selves appear  to  us  unnecessary  and  inexcusable. 
The  man  forgets  that  his  wife  is  a  woman,  and  she 
reciprocates  by  forgetting  that  he  is  a  man.  He 
comes  home  at  night  from  the  experiences  of  a 
most  trying   day.      Everything  has   gone  wrong. 


122  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

He  couldn't  do  his  own  work  half  as  well  as  usual, 
and  his  employes  were  still  more  stupid.  Some  in- 
vestments turned  out  badly,  or  a  bill  ownng  him 
that  was  marked  good  proved  to  be  very  far  from 
it.  His  home  seems  specially  attractive  in  antici- 
pation. He  feels  the  need  of  it.  He  opens  the 
door,  and  the  frown  on  his  manly  brow  deepens. 
His  reception  is  not  what  he  was  counting  on.  No 
one  meets  him.  There  is  no  indication  that  he  was 
expected  and  that  his  coming  was  looked  forward 
to  with  pleasure.  His  wife  is  out,  or  she  is  taking 
care  of  one  of  the  children  or  seeing  to  some  domes- 
tic duty.  When  she  appears,  she  seems  preoccupied, 
and  looks  as  if  she  expected  to  receive  sympathy 
instead  of  giving  it.  She  too  has  had  a  hard  day. 
The  children  have  been  fretful,  the  servants,  if  there 
are  any,  have  been  unreasonable,  and  even  the  culi- 
nary implements  have  shared  the  general  perverse- 
ness  of  things.  She  has  been  looking  forward  to 
her  husband's  return,  to  the  comfort  of  his  pres- 
ence and  the  encouragement  of  his  words,  but  after 
a  single  look  into  his  face  she  too  is  disappointed. 
Could  they  for  a  little  moment  exchange  eyes,  each 
would  get  what  each  craved,  each  would  see  that 
the  strength  of  the  other  had  been  somewhat  over- 
taxed, and  due  allowance  would  be  made ;  but,  for 
lack  of  this  thouglitfulness,  the  fine  atmosphere  of 
the  home  is  likely  to  be  seriously  disturbed,  and 
possibly  another  proof  given  the  cynical  crowd  of 
onlookers  that  they  are  right  about  it,  of  course, 


MAKING  A  HOME.  123 

and  "  marriage  is  indisputably  a  failure."  It  always 
is  when  the  purpose  of  it  is  not  the  making  of  a 
home,  but  the  gratification  of  a  momentary  prefer- 
ence exalted  by  a  noble  name  to  which  it  has  no 
right,  or  when  it  is  chosen  as  the  surest  and  easiest 
way  of  drawing  the  envious  congratulations  of  one^s 
friends,  or  as  an  escape  from  ennui,  or  as  the  last 
reformatory  hope  of  the  worn-out  epicurean.  Mar- 
riage in  each  of  these  instances  is  a  predestined  fail- 
ure ;  but  even  when  the  marriage  is  one  of  those 
that  appear  to  have  been  made  in  heaven,  it  will 
have  come  short  of  the  perfect  ideals  that  exist  in 
the  place  where  it  was  made,  and  even  of  the  some- 
what imperfect  ideals  of  the  contracting  parties. 
Such  a  wife  and  mother  as  Monica  was  has  pointed 
out  her  own  failures,  which  she  thought  were  many. 
The  most  perfect  home  that  has  ever  been  formed 
since  Adam  and  Eve  made  their  great  mistake  in 
Paradise  has  lacked  something ;  but  to  write  the 
word  '^failure"  over  the  institution  itself  on  this 
account  would  be  to  condemn  as  absolutely  worth- 
less everything  there  is  this  side  of  heaven. 

Every  true  home  must  be  founded  on  unselfish- 
ness. It  does  not  exist  for  the  husband :  that 
would  be  the  tyranny  of  strength  ;  or  for  the  wife  : 
that  might  be  the  tyranny  of  sweetness ;  or  for  the 
children :  that  would  be  the  tyranny  of  weakness  and 
ignorance ;  but  it  exists  for  all  the  members  of  it. 
*'  Bear  ye  one  another's  burdens  "  would  be  pecu- 
liarly appropriate  as  a  home  motto,  though  it  has 


124  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

failed,   apparently,  to   achieve  popularity  of  that 
sort. 

Such  a  home,  while  the  most  desirable  environ- 
ment for  a  man  or  a  woman,  rises  to  the  point  of  a 
necessity  for  the  child.  As  a  place  for  bringing  up 
children  the  home  has  stood,  since  Plato's  unsuccess- 
ful experiment,  without  a  rival.  "  What  France 
needs,"  said  Napoleon  as  his  keen  eyes  detected  the 
moral  and  physical  degeneration  of  the  people  of 
which  he  had  made  himself  emperor — *'  What 
France  needs  Is  mothers."  That  was  only  half  the 
truth,  as  he  knew  very  well.  He  wanted  the 
fathers  to  fight  his  battles  and  to  win  new  crowns 
for  the  collection  he  was  making,  or  he  would  have 
said,  "  What  France  needs  Is  homes."  There  is 
little  hope  for  France,  or  for  any  other  country  that 
has  that  crying  need,  until  it  Is  met  In  some  good 
degree.  American  fathers  are  not  prevented  by 
force,  as  the  French  were  under  Napoleon,  from 
doing  their  best  to  satisfy  that  need  here,  but  there 
are  forces  almost  as  potent  as  the  despotic  will  of 
Napoleon  that  hinder  and  destroy  whatever  wish 
of  that  sort  many  men  may  have.  Business  and 
politics  are  as  exacting  masters  as  was  the  ambitious 
Corsican.  They  draft  men  Into  their  exclusive 
service  from  extreme  youth  to  extreme  old  age. 
They  monoplize  not  only  their  time,  but  their 
thoughts  and  interests,  In  a  way  that  Napoleon 
might  have  envied.  If  a  man  is  altogether  engross- 
ed with  public  duties,  however  honorable  In  them- 


MAKING  A  HOME.  125 

selves,  let  him  not  attempt  to  build  a  home :  his 
failure  is  foredoomed.  Aud  let  not  the  man  who 
has  begun  to  build  a  home  think  that  any  other 
duty,  of  any  sort  whatever,  can  be  of  greater  im- 
portance. The  men  who  are  compelled  to  work 
from  early  morning  till  late  at  night  are  fortunately 
very  few  indeed  in  this  favored  country,  but  the 
men  who  use  the  entire  day,  evenings  included,  to 
further  mercantile  or  professional  or  political  ambi- 
tions, alas  for  their  homes !  are  very  numerous. 
The  masculine  element  is  just  as  essential  as  the 
feminine  in  the  household.  The  fatherhood  is  as 
important  as  the  motherhood  in  the  home.  We 
may  be  ready  to  question  this  because  so  many 
homes  still  exist  and  thrive  in  a  way  in  which  the 
element  of  fatherhood  is  altogether  lacking.  But  if 
the  father  had  fulfilled  his  duty,  not  as  well  as  the 
average  father  does,  but  as  well  as  the  average 
father  might,  who  can  tell  but  that  that  home  might 
have  risen  as  high  if  the  wing  of  motherhood 
instead  of  fatherhood  had  been  broken?  As  one 
of  the  two,  as  chief  of  the  two  contractors,  who 
have  engaged  to  build  a  home  under  your  roof,  you 
have  no  right  to  give  the  evenings  that  should  be 
used  in  that  work  to  your  ledger  or  your  news- 
paper or  your  club  or  your  lodge.  It  will  be  better 
for  you  to  be  able  to  say  at  last  '^  Here  am  I,  Lord, 
and  the  children  that  thou  hast  given  me,"  than  to  be 
able  to  say,  "  Here  am  I,  Lord,  with  a  great  fortune 
that  I  have  gathered,  or  a  great  name  that  I  have 


126  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

achieved ;  but,  as  for  my  childreu,  their  mother  will 
report  for  them." 

For  we  cannot  succeed  in  separating  the  two 
worlds  altogether  from  each  other.  You  may  feel 
sometimes  as  if  there  was  nothing  in  your  business 
that  could  be  of  any  interest  to  the  angels  of  heaven, 
but  in  your  home,  with  your  children  in  your  arms, 
you  can  easily  understand  Christ's  love  for  the  little 
ones ;  and  those  texts  about  "  their  angels  always 
beholding  the  face  of  their  Father  who  is  in  heaven  " 
speak  to  your  heart  even  though  the  impression  they 
leave  upon  the  brain  is  not  altogether  distinct.  How 
can  you  help  thanking  God  for  your  children? 
How  can  you  turn  your  back  in  the  morning  upon 
your  home  without  asking  him  to  protect  them? 
You  have  to  be  early  at  the  store  or  office  ?  Yes, 
but  you  can  always  be  there  a  few  minutes  earlier  if 
it  is  important  enough ;  then  you  can  take  that  time 
for  your  home.  You  can  use  it  in  reading  a  few 
verses  from  the  Bible  or  in  offering  a  few  words  of 
prayer.  You  haven't  the  courage  to  do  it?  Think 
what  a  confession  you  are  making  !  You  wouldn't 
like  to  have  any  one  else  charge  you  with  such 
cowardice.  Of  all  places  on  the  earth,  your  home 
should  be  the  one  where  you  should  be  freest  to  ex- 
press your  truest  self,  however  bunglingly  at  first, 
where  there  is  no  dread  of  misapprehension  and  ridi- 
cule. He  must  be  a  very  small  man  indeed  who  in 
such  surroundings  dare  not  hear  his  own  voice  re- 
peating the  Lord's  Prayer  or  offering  some  simple 


MAKING  A  HOME.  127 

sentences  of  praise  or  petition.  You  need  the  grace 
that  will  be  given  you  at  such  a  time  as  much  as 
your  wife  needs  to  know  that  hers  are  not  the  only 
prayers  that  rise  for  your  home,  and  as  much  as  your 
children  need  to  see  the  man  they  think  the  wisest 
and  best  and  strongest  in  the  world  on  his  knees 
before  his  God.  They  may  have  the  very  best  in- 
struction in  the  Sunday-school  and  from  the  pulpit 
in  after-years,  but  nothing  will  ever  impress  them 
like  those  earliest  memories  of  the  family  altar  where 
you,  the  father,  used  to  pray.  Love,  courtesy, 
thoughtfulness,  unselfishness,  cannot  build  a  home 
without  prayer.  "  Except  the  Lord  build  the  house 
they  labor  in  vain  that  build  it." 

Home  and  heaven  !  Christ  has  joined  them  so 
closely  together  that  it  is  hard  for  us  to  disassociate 
them  in  our  thoughts.  There  is  no  spot  upon  earth 
in  which  there  is  so  much  of  heaven  as  in  a  true 
home.  Heaven  does  indeed  lie  about  the  infancy 
of  every  child  born  into  such  surroundings,  and  the 
home  seems  like  a  perpetual  pledge  of  heaven.  "  In 
my  Father's  house  are  many  homes.  I  go  to  pre- 
pare one  for  you."  For  a  few  years  only,  at  the 
longest,  can  the  homes  we  are  building  here  endure. 
When  some  morrow's  sun  shall  rise,  its  light  will 
fall  upon  closed  shutters,  and  in  the  darkness  of 
that  house  only  the  ruins  of  a  home  will  remain  ; 
but  the  love  and  thoughtfulness  and  unselfishness 
and  faith  that  once  made  a  home  there  are  not  dead. 
They  are  potent  still ;  and  when   a  few  more  suns 


128  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

shall  have  risen  and  set,  the "  home  that  has  disap- 
peared altogether  from  earth  will  have  been  rebuilt 
for  ever  in  heaven.  "  Oh,  happy  home  !  Oh,  hap- 
py children  there  !" 


IX. 
STRENGTH, 


IX. 

STRENGTH. 

"  Finally  my  brethren,  be  strong  in  the  Lord  and  in  the 
power  of  his  might." — Eph.  vi,  10. 

WE  are  born  with  an  admiration  for  physical 
streno^th.  It  is  unconscious  and  instinctive. 
When  the  infant  prefers  the  father's  arms  to  the 
mother's,  if  it  ever  does,  its  cry  is  an  expression  of 
the  high  value  it  places  upon  a  firm  grasp  and  a 
steady  step.  The  pictures  the  boy  cuts  from  illus- 
trated newspapers  and  hangs  on  the  walls  of  his 
room  are  those  of  athletes.  So  are  the  portraits,  for 
the  most  part,  that  hang  in  the  world's  gallery  of 
heroes.  There  stands  old  Hercules  leaning  on  his 
club,  with  the  Nemean  lion  at  his  feet.  There  is 
great  Theseus  grappling  with  the  centaur  and  about 
to  give  the  hitherto  invincible  monster  his  quietus. 
There  is  Samson  scattering  the  Philistines  right 
and  left  with  the  ridiculous  jaw-bone  of  an  ass  that 
becomes  terrible  in  those  awful  hands.  There  is 
David  whirling  his  sling  and  sending  the  smooth 
stone  into  the  white  spot  between  the  shaggy  brows 
of  the  giant,  and  cutting  off  that  bison-like  head 
with  a  colossal  sword.     There  to  this  day  on  the 

131 


132  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

walls  and  the  propylsea  of  Egyptian  temples  is  the 
conqueror  Rameses  holding  his  cajitives  by  the  liair 
of  their  heads,  while  he  towers,  by  the  flattering 
strokes  of  the  sculptor's  chisel,  many  feet  above 
them. 

The  world  will  never  outgrow  its  admiration  for 
strong  muscles  and  sinews.  The  Olympian  games 
are  no  more,  but  the  popular  idol  still  is  the  stroke- 
oar  of  the  successful  crew,  the  pitcher  of  the  cham- 
pion baseball  nine,  the  bowler  of  the  eleven  that 
holds  the  cup,  the  rusher  of  the  football  team  that 
wins  the  ball.  The  Christianity  that  equips  its 
young  men's  associations  with  model  gymnasia  and 
athletic  grounds  certainly  has  no  word  of  contempt 
for  physical  development.  It  may,  and  does,  have 
something  to  say  about  moderation  in  these  things, 
and  concerning  a  tendency,  particularly  marked  in 
our  colleges,  to  over-estimate  the  value  of  brawn  as 
compared  with  brain.  It  is  not  the  best  scholar,  but 
the  best  athlete,  in  his  class  who  is  the  most  envied 
man  of  the  college.  Christianity,  common  sense  and 
history  all  make  their  protest  against  this  as  a  false 
appraisement,  an  untrue  perspective — as  the  jndg- 
ment  of  an  untrained  eye. 

The  very  people  that  once  took  the  most  intense 
pleasure  in  physical  triumphs  began,  after  a  time, 
to  see  that  this  was  not  the  line  for  man  to  put 
himself  upon.  The  brutes  were  all  superior  to  hini 
here,  and  in  any  fair  test  of  strength  or  speed  or  en- 
durance man  must  always  come  out  decidedly  second- 


STRENGTH.  133 

best.  The  clearest-eyed  of  the  Greeks  saw  the  mis- 
take, and  did  what  they  coukl  to  lift  man  to  a  higher 
level,  the  intellectual,  where  tliey  felt  he  belonged, 
and  where  the  brutes  could  no  longer  be  his  com- 
petitors. They  succeeded  so  well  that  the  honors 
once  given  to  the  runner  and  the  thrower  and  the 
fighter  were  very  largely  transferred  to  the  poet  and 
the  orator  and  the  philosopher.  The  man  who  could 
recount  in  prose  or  verse  the  deeds  of  warriors  was 
sure  of  a  glory  that  might  rival,  if  not  outshine,  that 
of  the  w^arriors  themselves.  Intellectual  develop- 
ment was  sought  as  eagerly  as  physical  had  been. 
With  the  exception  of  college-students,  all  men 
to-day  who  have  sufficient  education  to  give  their 
opinions  any  value  rank  intellectual  strength  above 
physical.  They  agree  with  Bacon  "  that  knowledge 
is  power.'^  They  would  not  for  a  moment  think  of 
comparing  the  strength  of  a  Samson  or  a  Hercules 
with  that  of  a  Homer  or  a  Humboldt.  One,  they 
see,  is  altogether  animal,  perishing  as  utterly  after 
a  few  years  as  that  of  a  lion  or  an  elephant,  while 
the  other  is  altogether  human  and  will  endure  as 
long  as  human  languages  are  able  to  hold  human 
thousrhts  in  solution. 

So  far  we  may  go  with  the  majority  ;  but  if  we 
attempt  to  rise  to  a  still  higher  level,  we  must  ex- 
pect to  find  the  number  with  us  diminishing.  Still, 
there  is  a  very  respectable  minority  who  rank 
strength  of  will  and  purpose  above  botli  Intel k^ctual 
and  physical  strength.    Not  a  Hercules  nor  a  Homer 


134  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

is  60  stroug  a  man,  in  their  eyes,  as  a  Moses  or  a 
Washington,  enduring  reproach  or  misapprehen- 
sion without  swerving  for  a  single  step  from  the 
course  they  had  marked  out  as  right.  There  are 
political  exiles  in  Siberia,  it  is  said,  some  of  them 
women  of  high  rank  and  fine  culture,  accustomed  to 
the  delicate  life  of  the  Russian  capitals,  who  have 
passed  long  years  of  unspeakable  torture  in  circum- 
stances that  seem  to  us,  as  we  read,  absolutely  un- 
unbearable  even  for  men  of  the  coarsest  fibre,  who 
say  little  in  the  way  of  vituperation,  but  who 
calmly  announce  their  unalterable  conviction  that 
while  "  they  may  die  in  exile,  and  their  children 
may  die  in  exile,  and  their  children's  children  may 
die  in  exile,  at  last  something  will  come  out  of  it/' 
Such  an  exhibition  of  strength  as  that  thrills  every 
heart  that  is  in  the  right  place  as  no  possible 
physical  or  intellectual  triumphs  could  ever  do. 
This  strength  of  will  is  so  closely  allied  to  moral 
strength,  if  they  are  not  one  and  the  same  thing 
from  diiferent  sides,  that  it  is  often  exceedingly  dif- 
ficult to  distinguish  between  them.  These  exiles  in 
Siberia  cannot  be  merely  self-willed  or  obstinate : 
they  must  have  a  firm  conviction  that  they  are  doing 
right  and  to  do  differently  would  be  a  violation  of 
conscience.  It  needs  only  to  widen  the  horizon  which 
we  presume  them  to  have  to  include  every  violation 
of  conscience  to  give  us  a  glimpse  of  one  of  the 
least  common  but  most  exalted  types  of  strength. 
Shakespeare  assumes  that  strength  of  this  sort  is  by 


STRENGTH.  135 

no  means  always  associated  with  great  physical 
power  when  he  says, 

"Oh,  it  is  excellent 
To  have  a  giant's  strength,  but  it  is  tyrannous 
To  use  it  like  a  giant." 

Physical  prowess,  uncontrolled  by  justice,  right  con- 
science, is  utterly  denuded  of  all  its  beauty  in  Shake- 
speare's eyes,  and  should  be  in  ours.  Why  should 
we  even  account  it  entitled  to  the  name?  Is  it  not 
an  absurdity  to  speak  of  a  man  as  being  strong  who 
can  be  turned  this  way  or  that  by  any  wind  that 
blows  upon  him  ?  Is  he  strong  who  has  no  self- 
control,  who  is  run  away  with  by  temper  or  by 
appetite  or  by  desire,  who  yields  with  but  the  show 
of  a  struggle  to  his  lust  for  gold  or  pleasure  or  place? 
Is  he  a  strong  man  who  has  not  strength  enough  to 
do  what  he  believes  to  be  the  right  thing,  though 
his  friend  or  his  party  assure  him  that  it  will  be 
dangerous  to  his  interests  and  theirs?  Is  he  a 
strong  man  who  trembles  at  the  crack  of  some 
boss's  whip,  or  who  dare  not  speak  because  the 
command,  "  Keep  still !"  has  been  passed  along  the 
ranks  ?  The  strong  man  must  be  free,  free  to  do  as 
his  conscience  commands  him.  Mrs.  Boswell,  who 
had  no  liking  for  her  husband's  gruif  and  burly 
friend  Dr.  Johnson,  and  who  thought  the  philoso- 
pher had  far  too  much  influence  over  Mr.  Boswell, 
once  said  "  she  had  very  often  seen  a  bear  led  about 
by  a  man,  but  never  before  had  she  seen  a  man  led 


136  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

about  by  a  bear  f  but  eveiy  man  is  who  lets  the 
brutal  part  of  himself  or  of  other  men  dictate  to 
him,  every  man  is  who  allows  any  sensuous  indul- 
gence to  lead  him  where  his  conscience  tells  him  he 
ought  not  go.  A  man  led  about  by  a  bear  is  not 
our  idea  of  a  strong  man.  Manhood,  the  world  is 
slowly  coming  to  see,  lies  not  in  physical  or  intel- 
lectual qualities,  but  in  moral  dispositions.  Both  a 
giant  and  a  philosopher  may  be  brutes,  but  he  who 
is  strong  in  truth,  in  honor,  in  purity,  in  self-cul- 
ture, in  the  right,  in  the  Lord,  is  a  strong  man. 

Like  the  lower  forms,  such  strength  is  acquired, 
and  by  the  same  methods.  Whoever  wishes  to 
be  an  athlete  or  a  scholar  must  consent  to  deny 
himself  some  very  pleasant  things.  You  must  go 
into  training  to  be  an  athlete,  you  must  go  to 
school  to  be  a  scholar ;  and  in  each  instance  self-in- 
dulgence is  forbidden.  There  must  be  no  dainty 
dishes,  no  stimulating  beverages  or  narcotics  for  the 
athlete ;  no  midnight  amusements,  no  morning 
hours  wasted  in  sleep,  for  the  scholar.  Just  so  far 
as  each  is  in  earnest  there  is  a  positive  delight  in 
any  self-denial  that  oiFers  an  increased  probability 
of  success.  Let  the  athlete  or  scholar  be  worthy 
of  the  name,  and  he  stops  at  nothing  that  will  ap- 
parently bring  him  a  little  nearer  what  he  wishes 
to  be.  He  sees  no  attractiveness  in  anything  that 
would  weaken  him  and  his  chances  of  success. 
Nothing  more  than  this  is  asked  of  those  who  wish 
for  character,  moral    strength.      Self-denial  stares 


STRENGTH.  137 

them  in  the  face  the  moment  they  begin  tlieir  quest, 
but  it  is  the  denial  of  that  self  which  can  be 
strengthened  only  at  the  expense  of  the  very  self 
they  are  anxious  to  develoj).  Like  the  athlete  and 
the  scholar,  the  man  must  avoid  every  indulgence, 
every  amusement  even,  that  saps  and  undermines 
those  fine  virtues  that  must  all  be  preserved  and 
developed  if  he  is  ever  to  fill  his  own  idea  of  the 
strong  man.  To  be  anything  you  must  deny  some 
part  of  yourself.  To  be  a  man  you  have  only  to 
deny  that  part  of  yourself  which  is  unworthy  of 
you.  There  is  no  more  self-denial  for  those  who 
are  seeking  to  be  strong  in  the  Lord  than  there  is 
for  those  who  are  seeking  any  other  kind  of  strength  ; 
only  it  is  a  different  kind  of  self-denial. 

But  no  man  ever  gets  strength  of  any  sort  what- 
ever by  simply  not  doing  some  things.  What  he 
gives  up  is  the  mere  clearing  the  ground  of  weeds, 
so  that  the  crop  he  wishes  to  raise  can  have  a  fair 
chance.  There  are  negative  Christians,  or  imita- 
tions called  such,  whose  only  claim  to  be  strong  is 
that  they  have  given  up  everything  that  makes  men 
weak.  They  permit  themselves  no  self-indulgences, 
no  pernicious  amusements ;  they  do  nothing  that 
could  sap  their  strength.  But  what  are  they  doing 
to  increase  it?  Where  is  the  athlete  or  scholar  that 
wins  prizes  simply  by  not  doing  injurious  things? 
Muscle  and  brain  must  be  fed  and  exercised  if  they 
are  ever  to  be  strong  ;  so  must  the  soul.  Some  men 
are  by  nature  morally  as  well  as  physically  and  in- 


138  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

tellectually  stronger  than  others,  but  no  man  ever 
yet  had  a  strong  character  that  was  not  made  strong 
by  his  own  efforts.  He  nourished  and  exercised  him- 
self with  that  end  in  view.  When  he  found  that  the 
moral  giants  had  all  fed  their  souls  on  the  moral 
truths  of  the  Bible,  he  considered  this  good  evidence 
that  there  must  be  something  in  this  book  especially 
adapted  for  strengthening  the  conscience  and  the  soul 
of  man.  Must  a  young  man  or  a  young  woman  read 
the  Bible  ?  Not  necessarily  merely  to  be  what  many 
young  men  and  young  women  are;  but  for  those 
who  wish  to  be  morally  and  spiritually  strong  this 
is  the  one  indispensable  book.  Even  men  like  Mr. 
Huxley,  who  are  not  willing  to  concede  its  divine 
character,  yet  place  the  Bible  above  all  other  books 
as  a  moral  force.  They  do  not  see,  they  confess, 
how,  without  the  use  of  it,  ideals  so  lofty  and  in- 
spirations so  potent  can  ever  be  produced.  When 
you  are  told  to  read  the  Bible,  you  need  not  think 
of  yourself  as  going  around  wnth  a  flexible-covered 
copy  of  the  sacred  volume  under  your  arm,  ques- 
tioning all  your  friends  as  to  the  meaning  of  various 
passages  in  the  minor  jirophets  and  in  Revelation. 
I  have  nothing  to  say  against  carrying  a  Bible 
under  your  arm,  but  the  place  where  it  will  do  you 
the  most  good  to  carry  it  is  where  Coligny  and 
Cromwell  and  Havelock  and  Livingstone  carried 
theirs  :  in  the  heart. 

But  the  Bible  itself  urges  those  who  feel  their 
need  of  wisdom  and  strength  to  ask  for  what  they 


STRENGTH.  139 

want  of  Him  who  moved  holy  men  of  old  to  write 
these  words.  It  is  a  book  that  draws  attention  to 
itself  only  that  it  may  fix  the  attention  thus  secured 
upon  an  ever-living  Being.  Must  a  young  person 
pray?  There  is  something  natural  about  reading 
anything,  even  the  Bible ;  but  this  bowing  like  a 
carved  figure  in  an  unaccustomed  attitude,  and  mut- 
tering words  in  the  air — what  relation  can  there  be 
between  such  an  exercise  and  the  practical  questions 
that  are  impatiently  waiting  the  conclusion  of  these 
orisons  ?  This  wise  book  constantly  associates  wor- 
ship and  conduct.  "  They  that  wait  upon  the  Lord 
shall  renew  their  strength.'^  Strong  men  like  Co- 
ligny  and  Cromwell  and  Havelock  and  Livingstone 
believed  that  they  could  not  fight  their  battles  suc- 
cessfully without  prayer.  They  did  not  lay  great 
stress  upon  a  particular  attitude,  or  upon  any  set 
forms,  or  upon  words  at  all.  Prayer,  to  them,  was 
not  a  mere  religious  ceremony  working  as  incanta- 
tions are  supposed  to  work :  it  was  direct  commu- 
nication with  the  one  Being  in  this  universe  whose 
power  is  always  making  for  righteousness,  and  who 
is  always  eager  to  help  those  who  feel  themselves 
sinking.  So  to  think  of  prayer  is  to  change  the  • 
obligation  into  a  privilege,  and  on  the  use  we  make 
of  it  will  depend,  to  an  extent  which  probably  very 
few  of  us  realize,  our  efficiency  as  moral  forces. 

From  some  points  of  view  this  seems  to  be  rather 
an  unfortunate  time  to  begin  life.  All  the  profes- 
sions and  all  forms  of  business,  they  tell  us,  are 


140  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

overcrowded.  The  supply  everywhere  seems  greater 
than  the  demand,  and  many  of  yon,  perhaps,  have 
ah'eady  had  the  sense  of  being  superfluous.  But 
the  world  is  by  no  means  overstocked  with  young 
men  and  women  who  are  strong  in  moral  purpose, 
strong  in  character,  stroug  in  the  Lord.  There  is 
no  profession  or  business  that  will  not  hasten  to 
make  room  for  any  number  of  such  young  persons 
as  soon  as  their  presence  is  known.  All  the  large 
firms  of  our  own  and  of  every  other  city  have 
unsatisfactory  employes  whom  they  would  be  glad 
to  weed  out  if  they  could  be  certain  of  filling  the 
vacancies  with  trustworthy  persons.  All  the  pro- 
fessions have  a  number  of  places  reserved  and  kept 
unoccupied,  waiting,  not  for  candidates — there  are 
scores  of  applicants  for  each — but  waiting  till  the 
right  man  appears,  and  then  immediately  the  call 
for  his  services  will  be  ready.  The  political 
world,  swarming  as  it  is  with  a  hungry  hoard,  is 
in  greatest  need  of  strong  young  men,  young  men 
whose  back-bones  are  not  to  be  bent  though  a  whole 
party  try  its  hand  at  it ;  young  men  whose  knees 
will  not  bow  to  the  tyrant's  cap  though  obloquy  and 
obscurity  are  threatened  ;  young  men  who  will  dare, 
as  young  men  did  fifty  years  ago,  to  lift  their  voices 
and  cry  out  against  iniquity,  though  entrenched  be- 
hind majorities,  respectability  and  religion.  For 
such  young  men  there  is  plenty  of  room  in  the  polit- 
ical world,  and  wherever  they  are  will  be  the  top. 
Society,  too,  has  places  for  more  than  four  hundred 


STRENGTH.  141 

young  persons  of  tliis  sort.  They  may  not  be  wel- 
comed with  any  great  enthusiasm  by  those  who  are 
already  in;  they  will  be  looked  upon,  possibly,  as 
interloping  puritans ;  but  the  sincerity  of  grateful 
recognition  on  the  part  of  the  few  will  more  than 
compensate  for  the  indifference  or  the  recoil  of  the 
many.  In  every  social  stratum  there  are  some  who 
set  themselves  determinedly  against  excesses,  against 
degrading  self-indulgence,  against  frivolity  and  ma- 
terialism. They  are  lonely  ;  they  feel  themselves  in 
a  hopeless  minority.  If  you  can  bring  them  a  rein- 
forcement of  moral  strength,  you  will  be  as  welcome 
as  Bliicher  was  to  Wellington,  as  La  Fayette  was  to 
Washington.  If  you  have  nothing  of  this  kind 
to  bring,  if  you  are  a  vacillating  person  with  no 
strong  moral  purpose,  if  everything  that  is  pleas- 
ant seems  to  you  desirable  without  any  question 
of  right,  then  society  of  any  sort  will  be  fatal  to 
you,  and  you  will  do  what  you  can  to  be  fatal  to  it. 
What  the  business  and  professional  and  polit- 
ical and  social  worlds  want  is,  as  Canon  Farrar 
says,  "not  echoes,  but  voices.^'  It  may  not  be 
yours  to  choose  to  be  a  voice  that  shall  startle  any 
of  these  worlds  and  force  them  to  give  heed  to  you 
as  to  a  modern  prophet,  but  it  is  yours  to  choose 
whether  you  will  supinely  echo  the  belittling  senti- 
ments that  fill  the  air,  or  whether  you  will  lift  your 
voice  and  strike  with  some  truth  that  is  in  your 
heart  straight  through  the  soft,  enervating  harmo- 
nies that  lull  the  senses  into  ignoble  slumber.     You 


142  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

are  not  strong  enough,  no  young  man  or  woman  is, 
to  be  such  a  voice  till  you  have  gained  strength  of 
character  and  moral  purpose  from  the  Lord. 

When  Paul  recounted  all  the  parts  of  the  com- 
plex armor  that  he  thought  necessary  for  those  who 
have  the  high  purpose  of  resisting  all  the  powers  that 
make  for  unrighteousness,  he  had  no  desire  to  fright- 
en them  or  us  into  unnecessary  caution  or  excessive 
equipment.  We  are  all  tempted  at  times  to  do  this, 
and  we  do  not  always  successfully  resist  the  temp- 
tation. We  half-unconsciously  exaggerate  dangers 
to  heighten  the  value  of  our  suggestions  as  to  the 
way  of  avoiding  them.  Paul  has  not  yielded  to 
any  such  temptation  here  if  he  ever  felt  it.  He 
has  given  us  a  highly  figurative,  but  not  over- 
wrought, description  of  what  we  have  to  contend 
with,  and  of  the  need  there  is,  therefore,  to  be  fore- 
armed. His  soldier,  when  he  has  him  entirely 
accoutred  with  his  girdle  and  breastplate  and  san- 
dals and  shield  and  helmet  and  sword,  impresses  us 
as  somewhat  overweighted,  and  as  liable  to  be  hin- 
dered, if  not  crushed,  by  his  weapons,  offensive  and 
defensive ;  but  try  this  armament  for  the  next  few 
days  and  see  if  you  cannot  carry  it  easily.  A 
girdle  of  truth,  a  breastplate  of  righteousness,  a 
shield  of  faith,  a  helmet  of  salvation  and  a  sword 
of  the  Spirit  can  all  be  used  without  impediment 
and  without  ostentation.  Any  lighter  equipment 
than  that  in  the  conflict  in  which  we  must  take  part 
will  prove  wholly  inadequate. 


STRENGTH.  143 

Be  strong,  not  as  the  brutes,  not  as  the  unthinking 
machine,  but  as  men.  Be  strong  to  resist  wrong  and 
to  beat  it  down.  To  this  Christ  calls  you.  It  is  a 
call  to  warfare,  yet  to  peace.  "Nothing  can  bring 
you  peace,''  Emerson  says,  "but  the  triumph  of 
principles;''  and  it  is  to  that  triumph  Christ  is 
pledged  to  lead  those  who  follow  him.  It  is  a  call 
to  run  a  hard  race  on  a  pathway  beset  by  dangers, 
but  arched  wnth  flowers  and  palms  of  victory.  Run- 
ning swiftly  and  courageously,  many  a  sweet  blossom 
and  green  palm  will  be  shaken  down  to  gladden  us  by 
the  way,  and  the  pulse  will  be  quickened,  and  hope 
will  be  high,  and  the  joy  and  safety  of  strength  will 
be  to  us  delightful  antepasts  of  the  unspeakable 
awards  that  await  the  victors  when  at  last  the  goal 
shall  be  reached. 


X. 
SUCCESS. 


10 


X. 

SUCCESS. 

"  His  Lord  said  unto  him,  Well  done,  thou  good  and  faithful 
servant." — Matt.  xxv.  21. 

THERE  was  room  enough  in  the  Roman  Pantheon 
for  any  god  who  had  worshipers  sufficiently 
enthusiastic  to  claim  a  place  for  him  there,  and  there 
is  room  enough  in  the  world's  temple  of  success  for 
a  pillar  or  a  tablet  to  any  claimant  who  can  muster 
a  sufficiently  enthusiastic  crowd  of  admirers.  No 
questions  are  asked  as  to  the  cause  of  that  enthusi- 
asm :  it  may  have  been  excited  by  rare  ability  in 
numbering  stars  or  in  counting  votes,  in  helping 
one's  fellow-men  or  one's  party  and  one's  self  Here 
in  this  modern  pantheon  are  altars  equally  magnifi- 
cent to  men  who  have  given  away  large  fortunes 
honestly  made,  and  to  men  who  have  dishonestly 
appropriated  fortunes  quite  as  large  for  their  own 
use.  There  stands  a  pillar  to  keep  alive  the  memory 
of  a  martyr  whose  death  meant  life  for  a  wdiole 
community,  and  by  its  side  is  a  pillar  of  the  same 
sort  to  a  manipulator  whose  life  meant  death  to 
banks  and  railroads,  and  to  every  financial  enter- 
prise upon  which  he  could  lay  his  wrecking  hand. 

147 


148  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

That  there  should  be  some  confusion  in  the 
minds  of  those  who  stroll  through  this  temple  is 
inevitable.  The  natural  inference  for  any  one 
would  be  that  success  and  notoriety  are  synonymous, 
and  that  to  become  notorious,  in  whatever  way,  is  the 
thing  to  be  sought.  This  is  not  only  the  natural, 
but  the  ordinary  and  actual,  inference  of  those  who 
are  forming  their  ideas  of  success  from  what  they 
see  in  this  temple.  We  must  do  something,  they 
are  saying  to  themselves,  to  push  our  way  through 
the  crowd  and  force  attention :  it  makes  very  little 
difference  what.  If  you  can  write  a  book  or  paint 
a  picture  or  discover  a  new  force  or  some  unsuspect- 
ed utility  in  an  old  one,  if  you  can  pierce  an  un- 
known continent  or  the  ice  of  the  polar  sea  or  so 
play  upon  the  curiosity  and  credulity  of  men  as  to 
fix  their  expectations  and  their  hopes  upon  yourself, 
you  have  solved  the  problem,  and  may  take  your 
place  among  the  select  company  of  successful  men. 

"  All  the  proud  virtue  of  this  vaunting  world 
Fawns  on  success,  howe'er  acquired." 

There  is  something  quite  clear  and  understand- 
able about  success  so  defined  and  achieved.  The 
prize  to  be  sought  is  plainly  in  sight,  and  so  is  the 
road  that  leads  to  it.  So  long  as  we  can  forget  the 
heights  that  are  above  us  and  the  depths  that  are 
within  us  it  is  possible  to  believe  that  success  of 
this  sort  will  be  eminently  satisfactory,  but  the 
moment  these  heights  and  depths  come  into  view, 


SUCCESS.  140 

doubts  of  a  very  serious  sort  will  be  begotten. 
How  can  we  consider  the  problem  solved  when 
factors  so  important  as  these  heights  and  depths  are 
left  out  altogether?  One  glance  inward  upon  a 
man's  own  soul  with  its  throng  of  aspirations  wholly 
untouched  by  notoriety  is  enough  to  make  all  but 
the  intoxicated  question  the  correctness  of  the 
world's  definition  of  success.  Was  it  right  to  sacri- 
fice a  hundred  yearnings,  confessedly  of  the  nobler 
sort,  to  a  single  desire  acknowledgedly  so  common 
as  easily  to  become  vulgar  ?  AVas  it  wise  to  barter 
truth  and  sincerity  and  purity  and  honor,  and 
probably  health  and  culture,  for  a  notoriety  from 
which  all  that  is  still  left  of  manhood  shrinks  un- 
satisfied and  disappointed  away  ? 

If  a  glance  inward  can  beget  such  doubts,  what 
vitality  will  be  given  them  by  a  glance  upward  ! 
Those  silent  stars,  a  few  nights  hence  it  may  be, 
are  to  look  down  upon  our  graves;  what  matter 
then  about  pillars  of  marble  and  tablets  of  brass  in 
the  temple  of  Fame?  Was  it  worth  while  to  pay 
so  dearly  for  a  possession  that  could  be  held  so 
briefly  ?  The  element  of  time  is  a  large  element  of 
value.  No  man  would  pay  as  much  for  an  ice-pal- 
ace as  for  the  same  edifice  in  stone,  or  for  a  memo- 
rial arch  in  wood  as  for  its  facsimile  in  marble. 
Gold  and  diamonds  have  no  value  on  a  sinking 
ship;  any  one  who  likes  can  have  them  for  the 
few  seconds  before  the  final  })lunge.  This  notoriety 
that  the  world  wishes  to  foist  on  us  as  genuine  success 


150  BEGINNING   LIFE. 

can  last  ns,  it  is  admitted,  for  only  a  little  while, 
and  then,  as  the  silent  stars  seem  to  forewarn  us, 
the  cheers  upon  which  we  have  lived  will  be  as 
silent  as  are  these  planets  that  have  looked  down 
upon  thousands  of  generations  that  have  wasted 
their  foolish  lives  for  just  such  evanescent  huzzahs. 
Their  silence  suggests  something  more  than  this. 
'^  Beyond  us,''  they  seem  to  say,  for  so  men,  almost 
in  spite  of  themselves,  have  interpreted  their 
silence,  ^'is  a  spirit-world  whose  population  is 
every  moment  augmented  by  those  who  once  dwelt 
upon  your  earth.''  Who  are  they  that  are  accounted 
successful  in  the  abodes  of  eternity?  We  can 
answer  in  part  the  question  for  ourselves.  Think 
this  generation  out  of  this  world  into  that,  and 
then  ask  yourself  how  many  of  those  you  have 
been  accustomed  to  call  successful  men  here  appear 
to  you  now  to  be  so  there.  The  winners  of  a  great 
fortune  or  a  great  name  or  a  great  position  shrivel 
under  that  test.  The  distinctions  upon  which  they 
assumed  and  were  conceded  a  superiority  among 
their  fellow-men  you  feel  have  disappeared  alto- 
gether. 

Your  own  heart  will  have  prepared  you  to  an- 
ticipate some  such  words  from  Him  who  is  to  be 
the  Judge  in  the  final  apportionment  of  awards  as 
those  Christ  speaks  to  his  disciples  when  he  describes 
the  last  great  assize  in  his  parable.  The  "  Well 
done"  that  sounds  in  the  ears  of  those  who  have 
been  really  successful  is  not  heard  at  all  by  those 


SUCCESS.  151 

who  have  aimed  for  nutoriety  in  whatever  way,  but 
by  those  who  have  aimed  for  fidelity.  The  first 
requisite  for  success,  then,  according  to  Christ's  idea 
of  it,  is  to  give  up  all  thought  of  it.  As  Jeremiah 
said  to  Baruch,  "  Seek  est  thou  great  things  for  thy- 
self? Seek  them  not."  As  Christ  said  to  his 
disciples,  "  He  that  would  be  greatest  among  you, 
let  him  be  your  minister,"  let  him  be  most  efficient 
in  service,  let  him  do  most  in  carrying  his  fellow- 
men  to  a  higher  plane.  He  substitutes,  it  has  been 
said,  "  the  greatness  of  love  for  the  love  of  great- 
ness." This  idea  of  success  and  that  of  the  world 
are  the  complete  antitheses  of  each  other.  The 
world  knows  nothing  about  any  success  that  has  not 
attained  extraordinary  and  noteworthy  results  of 
some  sort.  If  such  results  are  forthcoming,  it  is 
entirely  indifferent  as  to  the  means  employed. 
Christ  has  nothing  whatever  to  say  about  note- 
worthy results  :  his  successful  man  is  one  who  has 
been  wholly  engrossed  in  the  conunonplace  occu- 
pation of  doing  the  best  he  can  with  commissions, 
small  or  great,  given  him  by  his  Master.  In 
Christ's  eyes  means  and  motives  overshadow  results 
altoo:ether.  Each  of  those  who  received  his  "  Well 
done  "  was  one  whose  only  purpose  was  to  do  well ; 
and  that  purpose,  whatev^er  comes  of  it,  makes  a 
man,  according  to  Christ's  ideas,  successful. 

There  can  be  nothing  accidental  or  involuntary 
about  success  of  this  sort.  Prominence,  notoriety, 
may  be  matters  of  birth  or  of  good-fortune.     The 


152  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

world's  successful  man  may  have  doue  nothiug  him- 
self to  win  the  prize ;  it  may  have  dropped  into  his 
hands  while  he  was  almost  asleep,  with  only  con- 
sciousness enough  to  close  his  fingers  upon  his  luck ; 
but  fidelity  is  never  hereditary  or  accidental.  With 
a  great  effort  he  who  has  it  has  turned  away  from 
all  lower  ambitions,  and  with  a  mighty  movement 
of  soul  has  chosen  this  as  the  supreme  passion  of  his 
life.  And  as  no  chance  can  bring  success  of  this 
sort,  so  no  chance  can  prevent  it.  Nothing  is  more 
certain  than  that  prominence  and  notoriety  are  very 
often  denied  to  those  who  would  seem  to  have  merited 
them,  else  Addison  would  never  have  written, 

"  It  is  not  in  mortals  to  command  success, 
But  we'll  do  more,  Sempronius :  we'll  deserve  it." 

Notoriety  is  lawless  and  fickle.  Those  who  have  de- 
served to  win  her  may  for  some  inexplicable  reason 
fail  altogether,  while  she  flings  herself  almost  un- 
sought into  the  arms  of  the  unworthy.  But  success, 
as  Christ  defined  it,  is  as  intangible  to  chance  as  the 
earth's  orbit.  Nay,  nothing  in  the  physical  world 
can  be  half  so  assured  as  this,  for  God  himself  must 
change  before  fidelity  can  fail  of  his  "  Well  done." 
This  brings  success  easily  within  reach  of  us  all. 
Prominence  and  notoriety  must,  in  the  very  nature 
of  the  case,  be  confined  to  a  few.  The  moment  you 
lift' the  Vale  of  Interlaken  to  the  level  of  the  Jung- 
frau  your  mountain  has  disappeared.  To  give  prom- 
inence and  notoriety  to  every  one  would  be  to  rob 


SUCCESS.  153 

the  few  of  it  who  once  towered  above  their  fellow- 
men.  It  is  this  that  has  awakened  the  murderous 
envy  and  hatred  of  men.  The  prizes  they  were 
after  were  not  half  numerous  enough  to  go  around. 
There  was  only  one,  perhaps,  for  ten  or  a  hundred 
thousand  competitors,  and  every  one  of  these  hun- 
dreds or  thousands  looked  upon  every  other  one  iu 
the  same  class  as  an  enemy,  and  w^as  right.  Every 
eye  was  full  of  envy  and  every  heart  of  hate,  and 
there  was  no  help  for  it.  But  Christ's  idea  of  suc- 
cess changes  all  these  conditions.  To  make  room 
higher  up  some  one  else  must  be  crowded  out  of  the 
way  or  be  gotten  rid  of,  but  there  are  plenty  of 
places  lower  down,  the  best  places  for  service,  where 
Christ  wants  his  disciples  to  go,  and  where  just  in 
proportion  to  their  fidelity  they  will  be  found,  and 
their  success  will  be  exactly  commensurate  with  their 
faithfulness. 

There  is  no  need  for  any  one  who  is  willing  to 
adopt  Christ's  view  of  things  to  look  anxiously  or 
eagerly  for  openings  that  may  lead  to  success. 
Turn  which  way  you  will,  such  doors  stand  wide 
open.  Emerson  thinks  that  the  parlor  and  the 
college  and  the  counting-room  demand  as  much 
courage  as  the  sea  or  the  camp,  if  that  might 
possibly  be  considered  an  open  question,  it  cer- 
tainly is  not,  that  the  parlor  and  the  college  and 
counting-room,  and  the  mill  and  the  shop  and  the 
kitchen  included,  demand  as  much  fidelity  as  the 
sea  or  the  camp,  and  are  as  good  fields  for  its  exer- 


154  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

cise.  The  field  is  a  matter  of  very  little  if  any  con- 
sequence in  Christ's  eyes :  it  is  the  fidelity  that  is 
shown  in  it.  He  states  in  so  many  words  that  the 
final  award  will  be  accompanied  by  great  surprises, 
that  many  judged  by  the  world  and  the  Church 
to  have  made  prime  successes  will  be  given  low 
places,  if  any  at  all,  and  many  who  were  thought 
little  of  in  the  world  and  the  Church  will  be  ad- 
vanced to  the  head,  for  they  have  been  most  faith- 
ful, perhaps  in  most  confined  and  uninspiring  fields. 
Paul's  anticipations  of  receiving  a  crown  in  that 
day  were  not  based  upon  any  of  the  results  of  his 
work,  upon  the  number  of  churches  established  or 
converts  made,  but  he  was  certain  of  the  reward, 
because  he  had  fought  the  good  fight;  and  the  cer- 
tainty he  felt  for  himself  he  felt  for  every  one  else 
who  had  done  the  same,  though  what  the  world, 
and  even  these  faithful  ones,  would  call  a  victory 
may  never  have  been  won. 

Still,  though  we  may  accept  Christ's  ideas  of 
success  as  heartily  as  it  is  possible  for  beings  as 
short-sighted  as  ourselves  to  do,  there  will  be  a 
longing,  more  or  less  marked  according  to  our 
temperament  and  the  degree  of  our  faith,  for  re- 
sults. Believe  as  we  may,  and  as  we  must  if  we 
are  Christians,  that  fidelity  is  the  essence  of  success, 
and  that  results  are  only  its  accidents,  we  cannot 
prevent  ourselves  from  having  strong  desires  for 
those  accidents.  Very  possibly  we  should  not  at- 
tempt to  destroy,  but  only  to  control,  such  desires; 


SUCCESS.  155 

for  results  will  ordinarily  follow  fidelity,  and,  while 
they  are  not  to  be  sought  as  ends  in  themselves, 
they  are  not  to  be  undervalued  when  they  are  the 
ripened  fruits  of  fidelity.  While  Christ  commends 
the  faithfulness  of  the  good  servants  in  the  parable, 
and  while  we  feel  confident  he  would  have  com- 
mended any  one  of  them  as  heartily  who  had  done 
his  best  to  invest  and  increase  his  talents,  even  if 
he  had  been  unfortunate,  and  in  putting  the  money 
out  to  the  exchangers  had  lost  it  all,  yet  it  seems 
fair  to  draw  the  inference  that  in  real  life  desired 
results  will  in  the  great  majority  of  instances  follow 
fidelity,  as  in  the  parable  the  increase  of  the  talents 
follows  the  conscientious  care  of  them. 

That  the  man  who  is  intensely  anxious  to  be  faith- 
ful rather  than  excitedly  eager  for  results  is  in  the 
best  condition  to  command  such  results  is  almost 
self-evident.  He  will  have  the  two  qualities  that  all 
the  world  agrees  in  naming  as  requisite  for  the  pro- 
duction of  results  in  a  marked  degree,  industry  and 
tenacity  of  purpose.  Fidelity  and  industry,  while 
not  synonymous,  are  indissoluble.  They  are  like 
the  two  brothers  bound  by  a  vital  ligament  upon 
which  the  touch  of  the  separating  knife  meant  death 
to  both.  Men  have  "  toiled  terribly  "  for  glory  and 
wealth,  and  even  for  pleasure ;  but  other  men  have 
been  as  ambitious  and  avaricious  and  sensuous,  yet 
never  to  the  point  of  industry.  Some  other  avenue 
has  seemed  to  open  up  to  what  they  wished,  and 
they  have ' eagerly  chosen  it;  but  the  faithful  man 


156  BEGINNING  LIFE. 

has  but  one  hope.  For  him  there  is  no  other  pos- 
sible approach  to  the  object  of  his  desires.  Great 
students  of  human  nature  have  felt  that  they  were 
safest  in  making  their  appeal  to  this  sense  of  fidel- 
ity, of  duty.  Both  Wellington  and  Nelson  had 
little  to  say  to  their  soldiers  and  sailors  about  glory 
or  rich  prizes  or  the  delights  of  captured  capitals : 
they  had  much  to  say  about  duty  and  what  they 
had  a  right  to  expect  from  faithful  servants  of  their 
king  and  country.  Fidelity  is  the  only  motive  to 
industry  that  has  no  let  up  in  it.  The  man  who 
toils  terribly  for  glory  or  power  or  pleasure  when 
he  gets  what  he  has  toiled  for  finds  the  mainspring 
of  his  energies  is  broken,  and  he  falls  supinely  upon 
the  prize  he  has  won ;  but  the  man  who  is  toiling  that 
he  may  be  faithful  to  the  trust  committed  to  him  will 
be  urged  on  till  life  itself  is  over  and  his  account 
rendered.  What  is  to  prevent  such  industry  from 
producing  results  often  of  the  most  brilliant  sort? 
The  other  requisite,  the  world  says,  for  marked 
efficiency  in  attaining  the  end  desired  is  tenacity  of 
purpose.  But  who  is  he  that  is  most  calmly  tena- 
cious of  his  purpose?  Is  it  the  man  who  has 
vowed  the  great  vow  to  himself  and  the  silent  Fates 
that  he  will  be  prominent  and  notorious?  Can  such 
a  man  be  calm  when  he  thinks  of  the  tremendous 
difficulties  he  must  surmount  and  the  awful  uncer- 
tainties that  will  still  hover  about  him  even  after 
these  obstacles  are  over-passed  ?  Can  a  man's  heart 
beat  regularly  when  his  fate  hangs  on  the  throwing 


SUCCESS.  157 

of  a  dice?  Or  can  such  a  man  choose  his  path  and 
hold  to  it  tenaciously  when  short  cuts  are  constantly 
coming  in  sight  and  a  tumult  of  voices  urges  him  to 
take  these  or  direful  consequences?  The  man  has 
yet  to  appear  with  a  purpose  tenacious  enough  to  re- 
sist these  temptations  to  forsake  the  rcmd  originally 
chosen.  From  Caesar  to  Napoleon  I.  and  from  Na- 
poleon III.  to  Boulanger  the  short  cut  taken  against 
the  man\s  own  better  judgment  has  proved  fatal. 
It  must  always  be  so ;  wdioever  lives  for  results 
must  be  ready  to  change  his  route  whenever  some 
other  seems  more  direct.  While  the  end  sought 
may  be  always  the  same,  the  man  will  vacillate  and 
move  uneasily  hither  and  thither  as  he  hurries  im- 
patiently toward  it. 

What  a  contrast  to  all  this  is  the  steady,  unswerv- 
ing tread  of  the  man  who  is  striving  for  fidelity, 
without  reference  to  results  !  There  can  be  for  him 
no  alluring  short  cuts.  He  may,  of  course,  be 
tempted  to  unfaithfulness,  but  he  cannot  be  tempted 
with  the  hope  of  ever  reaching  what  he  seeks  b}^  any 
other  except  the  straight  path.  His  reliance  must 
always  be  in  doing  well  what  he  has  to  do,  while 
the  reliance  of  the  man  whose  eye  is  on  results  will 
be  in  getting  something  to  do  where  noise  and  bluster 
can  be  substituted  for  sweat  and  skill.  So  ev^ery 
path  to-day  is  crowded,  not  with  men  of  industry 
and  purpose,  but  with  men  who  are  hurrying  from 
place  to  ])lace  Avith  the  hope  that  by  some  lucky 
chance  they  may  some  time   find   something  that 


158  BEGINNING   LIFE. 

will  yield  results  without  effort.  Those  musicians 
on  our  street-corners  who  play  with  the  aid  of  a  few 
well-arranged  wires  a  half  dozen  instruments  at  a 
time,  and,  though  they  never  can  make  any  music 
on  any  of  them,  yet  attract  much  attention,  are  the 
embodiment  of  the  popular  craze  for  doing  any 
number  of  things,  however  poorly,  if  a  momentary 
prominence  may  be  gained  by  it.  Such  a  mounte- 
bank any  man,  whatever  his  gifts,  may  become  who 
makes  the  producing  of  results  the  purpose  of  his 
life. 

As  I  draw  near  the  end  of  this  series  of  discourses 
to  the  young  I  find  myself  eager  as  friends  are  when 
time  hurries  apace  and  they  must  part  to  speak  some 
word  that  might  linger  with  you,  some  helpful  word 
that  would  be  in  itself  an  inspiration  in  the  sore 
struQr2:le  of  life.  I  can  find  no  other  with  more  of 
destiny  in  it  than  this  we  have  heard  Christ  repeat- 
ing to  us  to-night:  "  Fidelity.^'  Fling  away  all 
thought  of  prominence  or  of  notoriety.  "  'Tis  only 
noble  to  be  good.''  Be  true  to  God,  to  Christ, 
whatever  comes,  and  your  fidelity  will  achieve  all 
fitting  results.  "  Seek  ye  first,"  he  says  to  you, 
"the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  righteousness,  and 
all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you."  What- 
ever else  fails  you,  you  shall  assuredly  have  at  last 
the  evidence  of  your  eternal  success  in  his  "  Well 
done,  good  and  faithful  servant  !" 

THE   END. 


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